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kiri-ah · 4 years ago

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Something To Sink My Teeth Into || she/her pronouns version

Themes: Supernatural AU, Vampire AU, strangers to lovers, angst and fluff (so much fluff), something similar to those symbiotes from Venom and Hanahaki disease combined, interplanar travel, Jaemin and the reader are oblivious and Chenle gets mad about it, long conversations about vampires, vampires can't cry

Pairing: Vampire!Jaemin x Female Human!reader

Warnings: mentions of blood (minor), mentions of eating (human food and vampire food), character death, Chenle is kind of a butthole, in depth conversations about humans and vampires which include biting and blood drinking, Yuta's house gets set on fire

Word Count: 26.4k

Taglist: @bluejaem, @heyyyun, @generantionct (untaggable), @stayctday, @kunrengui, @allegxdly, @leetaeyonglover, @koishua, @choppedupcactus, @hyuckworld, @alexameliamg, @notbeforelong, @jaemotel

Summary: A trip to Poland goes terribly wrong - or maybe terribly right - when you're bitten and kidnapped by a vampire. Between passing out, almost dying multiple times, and falling in love, you have a lot on your plate. Oh, and the magic. Right. Teaser here.

A/N: This is so much longer than it was meant to be... *sigh*

This has only been edited by myself and a friend of mine, please excuse any errors. I worked hard to make the best experience possible. For that reason, please note that this is the !she/her pronouns version! He/him pronouns may be found here, they/them pronouns here. Please enjoy!

You were on holiday in Krakow, Poland. For your twenty first birthday, your parents had gifted you a weeklong trip over Spring Break, and you had been having the time of your life. You had found Krakow rich in historical influence - it had been the capital of Poland until 1596 and still had remnants of the past, like a Renaissance-era trading post and sections of the medieval walls that surrounded the city. Plus, the section of the city that you were staying in was very close to the city center, where you discovered aforementioned trading post, called the Cloth Hall, and an old cathedral named St. Mary’s Basilica.

The first night of your stay, Sunday night, you had struggled to sleep, because of the time difference and the excitement of arriving. You stayed in Monday morning, trying to at least rest a bit, and then ventured out to the nearest coffee shop when that didn’t alleviate your sleepiness. The barista had whipped up your favorite pick-me-up morning drink, and you went to sit outside in the fresh air, surveying the plaza over the rim of your cup. It was just the right time of year, you thought, because it was nice and warm without being too hot, just how you liked it. The sun had started to rise about the buildings around you, illuminating certain structures and giving them an unearthly glow.

When you finished your drink, you put the cup into the collection bin and walked back out onto the main square, just enjoying the sun on your face (over the sunglasses you had bought in the airport after forgetting to pack yours) and letting the warmth sink through your limbs after the tired night. One of the unfortunate things about the time of year you had travelled was the tourists. There were families and older couples and people your age taking trips with their friends, and most everyone stayed right where you were staying as well: right in the heart of the city. To avoid as many crowds as possible, you had booked a tour of St. Mary’s Basilica for Thursday morning, and reserved entry to the underground museum for this afternoon.

Tomorrow you planned to go and see Grodzka Street, where you were going to try and find a souvenir. In the same neighborhood was an ancient church called St. Andrew’s Church, which dated back to around 1079. On Wednesday, you were going to brave the crowds of people in the Cloth Hall for the same purpose, and also because it was a historical landmark that you just needed to explore. Wednesday afternoon was blocked out to be a rest period, as was Thursday morning. Then on Friday you were planning to go and see the Wawel Castle and Cathedral. From there you would explore the various attractions on the property, and then return to the plaza later to eat. That afternoon, you planned to go to the Jewish cemetery. Saturday was blocked out for a trip to Auschwitz-Birkenau, which was a Nazi concentration camp and a Holocaust memorial out of the main town. When you returned to the hotel late that afternoon you would pack and get ready for your flight Sunday morning. It was going to be a very full and very fun week. Or at least you hoped it would be fun.

You explored the main square a little bit that first day and unpacked your things, making sure you had everything you needed for your trip and you didn’t need to walk to one of the convenience stores nearby.

The days passed quickly, and you finished each one completely satisfied. Everything and everyone here was so wonderful and you started to wonder how you had never heard of this place before this trip. It was absolutely one of the best places your parents could have picked.

On Friday morning you got up bright and early (well, actually, it was dark and early) to go to the Wawel Castle. You had heard from a travelling site that tickets sold out fast and it was important to get there early in the day, and you tried to heed that warning. At 7am when you arrived it was already busy, but thankfully not so much that the lines were too long. You wandered through the small exhibits and around the grounds. It was a bit more chilly today and you wrapped a scarf around your neck as you shivered, trying to find a less windy spot to hide out for a second. You found a little spot where you could take a moment and recharge your inner heater and were doing just that, burrowing into your small scarf mountain, when you realized that a person stood next to you. You looked up through your lashes at them and caught your breath - holy cow he had good genes. He had a sharp, sloping jawline that stopped at a chin less pointy than you had expected. His lips were plush and round, although he needed some chapstick. His hair was pushed around by the wind but despite that he looked, well, amazing. Sections were bleached, giving his hair an almost halo-esque look. His nostrils contracted as he inhaled and then his eyes cut down to yours, dark and deep and was that eyeliner?

He smiled then, a smirk that seemed far too self-assured for the situation, and leaned over towards your exposed ear. “I can feel you staring, sweetheart,” he murmured. The top of your ear, which had been feeling rather numb, flamed hot at his words. It almost hurt, the sudden jump into heat. You turned towards him fully, only eyes exposed by the scarf mountain. Your hair whipped around as the wind shifted again, but he didn’t seem cold, although he was in only a pair of black skinny jeans, a white t-shirt, and a black jacket. The jacket caught your attention for a second - it was studded with thousands of little rhinestones, like a varsity jacket gone shiny. Then he shifted closer into your space and you were forced to look back at his eyes, glittering in a way that seemed almost predatory. You sucked in a breath through your mouth and started to back away.

“S-sorry,” your breath came out in a whisper. Nobody seemed to notice your interaction. “I didn’t see you there, I’ll just leave.” You turned to go before his hand, surprisingly strong, clamped around your arm and pulled you back into his chest.

His voice came out in a growl as he blocked your scream with his other hand. “I am far, far too hungry for you to leave right now, precious.” The strength in your legs seemed to dissipate at his tone, you knew you needed to defend yourself, but ‘hungry’? What was that about? And precious? The hand wrapped around your arm let go and started unwrapping your scarf, exposing your face to both him and the frigid wind. He started to lean down, and you pressed your lips together tightly. At the very least, he wasn’t getting in your mouth. You may have lost the strength in your legs, but not in your will. Then he bypassed your mouth and leaned into your neck, inhaling and causing cold air to course along the column of your throat. He chuckled when you shivered, then bit into your neck.

The pain was overwhelming, you could feel each individual blood cell crying out, every organ protesting, your head started to pound with it. It hurt far more than even a dog bite should. It hurt like a shot at the doctor going on and on, echoing through your body and you were powerless to stop it. The pain flared in your neck and your brain seemed to slow down as the blood flowed away from it and into his mouth. You crumbled into him, and without detaching from your throat, he scooped you up into his arms, holding you there to be his personal bloodbag. You had long since stopped trying to scream, it was too difficult, too much effort.

Vampires, your thoughts whispered, before the pain covered you and you passed out, collapsing completely.

☽༓☾

You woke up in a... cozy cottage? There wasn’t any sign of your attacker and, in fact, no sign of anything vampire esque either. You looked around the single room at the soft fabric couch (covered in boho style throw pillows), the kitchenette (complete with pre packed food), and the window, through which you could see a combination flower and vegetable garden. There were two doors off of the room you were in, one that led towards the lush green outside, and one that must have concealed the bathroom.

The moment you realized this, you also realized that you really needed to use said bathroom, and struggled to plant your bare feet on the floor. Your legs didn't want to hold your weight, and you crumbled to the rug with a whine. Two seconds later, the door to the outside opened with a swish of fresh air and there, outlined by the sun, stood the most gorgeous person you had ever had the pleasure to lay eyes on. When he saw you on the floor, he groaned and ran a hand through his pink hair. "Shit, I'm so sorry, let me help you!" He ran over and you allowed him to half carry you into the bathroom. It wasn’t like you had any strength to protest, and he seemed nice. He smelled like sunshine on fresh earth.

Once you had finished using the toilet you tried to stand up again, now that you at least had some semblance of strength in your legs. After a few tries you were able to support yourself against the bathroom counter, with more than half of your weight against the frigid tiles. Your legs shook as you started standing more straight up, and you made a high pitched keening sound that you didn’t even know you could make; the man’s worried voice came through the door. His voice was higher and slightly panicked.

“Are you okay? Do you need help? Are you hurting too much?”

Your voice, which you hadn’t managed to make work properly, came out lower than usual and scratchy. A portion of your throat ached as you tried to make the sounds audibly. “Yeah,” you rasped out. “I can’t stand up properly.”

“Do you need me to come and help?” There was something about his voice that just made you want to trust him. It was soft but strong and even though he had toned down the panic, it still had soft tremors of worry running through it.

You thought about it for a second and considered yourself in the mirror. You looked, quite frankly, horrible. Your hair was a mess (more than usual), your eye bags were sagging unnaturally, and your eyes themselves were dull. You did look like you needed help. You sighed. “Sure.”

A moment later he opened the door slowly and stepped into the space with you, putting one arm around your waist to help support you. You relaxed some of your weight onto him and closed your eyes briefly. It would have been a wholly relaxing moment if not for your stomach. It grumbled up at you and you thought for a moment that it sounded like an angry octopus trapped inside of you. Then you blinked to clear the thought away as the man laughed. It was deeper than you expected from a man with pink cotton-candy colored hair, a low chuckle that rumbled through his body and, in turn, yours. You shook against him slightly with the movement and his other arm came to help you lean more against his body. He was stronger than you expected and you could feel the muscles in his arms shift as he reoriented himself.

“Let’s get you some food,” he said, smiling. “Unfortunately I’m not sure I’ll have much you’ll like.” You just nodded. Your throat was still throbbing uncomfortably where you were bitten and you weren’t sure you had the energy to even debate his statement. You were sure you would eat whatever he gave you. He led you into the main room again and helped you settle onto the couch. He walked over to the kitchenette and picked up a can of soup, then walked back to you to verify it was a kind that you liked. Once you had approved it, he went back and put it in a pot on the electric stove, starting to heat it up. As he stood over it, you had some time to think as you sat on the couch. The first thing you realized was that you still didn’t know what his name was, which was an issue. You couldn’t thank him properly without knowing his name. The second thing you realized was that you didn’t know where you were, exactly. The third was that you had probably missed your flight back home and your parents were going to murder you for it when you eventually got back. You shifted so you were more comfortable before trying to speak again. You started with the easiest vocal warmup you remembered and the man looked over at you with eyebrows raised.

“You good?” he asked. You nodded in response, hoping that your throat would relax and stop throbbing.

“Yeah, I think so,” you told him. “The side of my neck really aches where that man bit me.” His eyebrows furrowed at this and you thought maybe you just imagined it, that nobody actually bit you, but the pain was real enough in that moment and it was certainly real enough when he bit you. “Also,” you continued, “I still don’t know what your name is.” He seemed to think about this for a moment.

“I’m Jaemin Na,” he said eventually. “This is my house. And I think maybe we need to take a closer look at your bite, I didn’t realize it still hurt. Usually the throbbing goes away after a day or two.” You found yourself nodding along before his words sank in.

“Okay, uh, nice to actually know who you are now. I’m Y/N,” you said. There were suddenly many more questions floating around your brain. Usually he had said, which meant he had dealt with vampire bitten people before. How? Was he one? Why weren’t you a vampire? And how long had you been asleep for? They circled around your head like a dog chasing its tail until you realized that Jaemin was in front of you. It seemed like he was waiting for you to say something.

“Sorry,” you murmured. “What was that?”

“I said we have all the time in the world for you to ask me the questions I know you must have. Don’t psych yourself out. You’re safe.” Despite the fact that you knew next to nothing about him you found yourself once again trusting him without reason. He just seemed like a genuinely nice person, someone you could believe to tell you nothing but the truth.

“Okay,” you agreed, and it came out like a sigh. Your throat gave a particularly unpleasant throb and you unconsciously brought a hand up to rub at it. Jaemin’s hand fastened around your wrist and pulled it away, looking closely at your skin. He sighed.

“You’ve probably figured out by now that the man who bit you was a vampire. If you haven’t, have your moment of denial now.” You just looked back at him, surprised.

“Denial?”

“Yeah. Usually when humans find out about vampires for the first time they aren’t very accepting of it. I’ve had to replace my windows a few times from thrown objects.” You almost laughed before realizing that he was serious.

“Okay, well, I already got that, so go ahead,” you prompted.

“Great!” His eyes got just a little bit less heavy with your statement and he continued, “contrary to popular belief, vampires don’t actually turn humans all that often. If we had that little self control the whole population would be dead or turned already.” You noted his use of the word we and shuddered a little. He could attack you too? He seemed so gentle.

For the first time you noticed your soup in a bowl on the coffee table. Jaemin reclaimed your attention by speaking again. “We’re also pretty good at choosing who to bite, and when. We’re not heartless. We try to choose people with good metabolisms so that we can return them to Earth quickly.” At this you inhaled so sharply that he paused, looking over at you.

“We aren’t on Earth anymore?” you asked shakily. He shook his head with a quirk of his lips. That distracted you enough to calm down for a moment. He really was a gorgeous person. Was the word person still applicable to vampires? You didn’t know. He sucked you out of your thoughts again with a hand waved in front of you.

“No, we’re not on Earth. Where we are… it’s like a parallel plane of existence. Vampires can live here, do live here, in bigger bunches than we can on Earth. We call it ‘Vahmpyr.’ I always thought that was a really unoriginal name, but I was turned after it was discovered so I didn’t have much of a say. It would be like you trying to rename Earth.” He picked up your bowl of soup and stirred it around, handing it to you, before continuing.

“This is my vacation house of sorts, where I nurse humans who have been bitten back to their healthy selves. Generally we vampires try to keep one certified nurse or doctor in each coven just in case, more if the coven is large. It’s a handy skill to have. Especially if you happen to have parts of your coven who are as chaotic as ours.” He looked over at you and smiled wryly before adding, “I didn’t poison the soup, you know.” You looked down at your lap where the warm bowl sat and laughed under your breath before picking up the spoon and taking a bite. It was delicious. You flashed him a thumbs up with your mouth full and he smiled brightly again.

Once you had swallowed you asked, “how can you bite humans and not turn them? I didn’t know it was possible to not turn us.” He nodded like he was expecting this question.

“It’s kind of a strange feeling,” he told you. “Biting, I mean. It’s not like the human feeling of biting into a piece of meat. It’s just… it’s amazing. It’s like cold fruit on a summer’s day, hot chocolate while snow falls. It’s at once a feeling of absolute power and absolute devotion because tasting a human’s blood puts them above everything else, at least for a few moments. At the same time you’re aware that their body is falling apart and right into you. It’s intoxicating. Every once in a while you’ll bite someone that just tastes extraordinarily good, or meet someone with a unique and, pardon my language, delicious, smell. Then your body sort of automatically realizes you want them to stick around and releases the venom.”

“So,” you said, interested by his version of vampires, “if you bit me right now, I’d be fine?”

His eyes sparked with something new. Anger, you thought, or something close to it. “I just spent four days nursing you back to health and you want me to bite you just to see what happens?” he asked incredulously.

“No! I was just confirming. I’m sorry,” you murmured, and shoved another bite of the soup into your mouth for good measure. He sighed.

“I’m sorry too, it feels so easy to talk to you. I forget that you’re new to this.” You choked on your soup while he and he hurriedly patted your back as you regained your breath. “Are you alright?”

“Did you say you spent four days nursing me back to health?” you asked, head spinning. Four days. Four days. Four days. “I’ve been missing from Earth for four days?”

He deliberated for a moment. “Yes, and no. You’ve been off of Earth for four days, yes, but you aren’t missing.” You raised an eyebrow in response and he hurried to explain more. “I mean, obviously you’re here, and yes, you’ve been here for four days, asleep, recovering from Jisung’s bite. On the other hand, there’s still a you on Earth right now. That’s the interesting thing about Vahmpyr. We can bring humans back, with some effort, and while they’re here, a version of them is still on Earth. It’s still you. And if you go back, from what I understand, you get your other half’s memories back, like you never left. It’s quite the phenomenon.” He seemed completely serious and you were inclined to believe him, but this was insanity. Another you, a perfect copy, walking around on Earth while you hung out with the vampires in their parallel plane? You pinched yourself. It hurt, and you winced. Jaemin looked at you with this horrible understanding glimmer in his eyes like he was saying I know how this is. It’s weird and unimaginable but it’s here. Please don’t break any of my things.

Eventually you just kept sitting and looked back at him. “This really is good soup,” you said. He looked at you in surprise before bursting out laughing, face lighting up like the horizon at sunrise.

“You’re not going to attack me?” he asked between chuckles. “That’s the normal response. And thank you, that’s my favorite kind of soup too.” You shook your head, smiling back at him.

“I decided that there’s no changing it even if this is just a fever dream induced by an infected human,” you explained to him. “And wait, can you actually eat still? Like stuff besides blood?” In response he ran over to the small kitchen and grabbed a spoon of his own, dipping it into the bowl and moving it to his mouth. When he was done he smiled at you.

“I can still eat human foods. Nothing is as good as blood, of course, but I can still enjoy it. It’s just dulled by the transformation. And I’m glad that’s the stance you take on being transported to a different plane, I’ve known humans to react rather badly.” He took a moment to think. “For example, there was a woman who was convinced we had sexually assaulted her, which is a fair thought, but she wouldn’t let me explain anything to her. She ran outside as soon as her legs were strong enough and ran right into Lucas. He’s a really big guy, wide and tall and strong and such. She was so terrified she ran into my bathroom and I had to give her the spiel from through the door. Not the finest of interactions.” In spite of yourself you laughed. You could imagine the woman’s fear, especially if this Lucas was as infuriatingly gorgeous as Jaemin and the man who had bit you. You probably should’ve felt the same way, but something about Jaemin was just relaxing, and you felt safe with him.

“I get it,” you told Jaemin. “All of you guys; the guy who bit me - what did you say his name was? Jisung? Yeah, him. Jisung and you and probably Lucas, you all look like models which I guess goes with the vampire narrative, but it’s a little shocking since I’ve never seen someone so good looking. It’s nearly scary.” You looked back up to see Jaemin looking surprised.

“You think we’re good looking? Even after you got bitten by one, abducted by another, and have only heard of the third in a story about someone running away screaming?”

You shrugged. “All of that doesn’t change the facts. You’re still some pretty perfect looking human beings.” A moment later you realized what you had said and wrinkled your nose. “Sorry, uh, creatures. Is that offensive?” Jaemin laughed again and wow you could get addicted to that laugh. It was so carefree. You supposed that came with immortality.

“Technically ‘creatures’ is more accurate but isn’t very nice-sounding, even if we are unnatural monsters.” He said this as though he had come to terms with it. Even if we are unnatural monsters.

“I don’t think you’re unnatural,” you told him. “I mean, if there is a higher power out there then He or It or They created a whole plane for you and if not then nature did. I don’t think Vahmpyr would exist if you were unnatural.” He looked at you without speaking as you took another spoonful of soup.

“That’s… that’s a new way of looking at it.” He looked conflicted, like he was trying to reconcile your view of him with his view of himself. “I don’t think our plane was meant to exist though, by higher power or nature. Humans are beautiful because they age and there is room for change within your society. It’s hard to change an entire plane full of the unchanging.”

“Maybe so,” you argued, “but you’re obviously gorgeous on the outside, and on the inside it seems like you have a good system too. If I was a vampire I don’t think I’d take care of the humans I had bitten. It wouldn’t have occurred to me. They would all die. I would be dead, come to think of it.”

“That’s true,” he conceded. “You really do have a unique view of things.”

“Thank you?” It came out sounding more like a question than you intended. You finished your bowl of soup, licking the excess off of your upper lip. Setting the bowl back down seemed to break whatever spell had kept you in eager conversation with him. You supposed all of your questions had been answered, for now. Jaemin helped you get set up with Netflix on his TV and went back outside to his garden. He explained that you could call for him through the open window if you needed him, he would be right nearby. You nodded, already distracted by the opening scene of your show.

After a while you realized that there were low voices coming from outside. It sounded like Jaemin was talking to someone. You turned the volume down on the TV a little bit to listen. Maybe you could meet the infamous Lucas or someone else in Jaemin’s vampire family.

“... have to bring her to me?” Jaemin was saying. “You tasted her, you know her scent. This is painful. Her scent is all over my things, my bed.” He let out a small groan and the other man with him chuckled breathily.

“Hyung, I didn’t mean for her to smell so good I swear, it was a spur of the moment decision. I was hunting in her area and her scent was so enticing. Plus, I was hungry!” You shuddered at the mention of hunting. This one, who must be Jisung, was far less civilized than Jaemin, it seemed.

Jaemin made an angry noise and his words hissed out when he spoke. “You think it was enticing out in the open air of Poland? On a windy day? I’ve been smelling her acutely on my things, in my house, for four days and it hurts. My venom has been going non-stop for the entire period and it’s not like I can just change her, she’s got a life ahead of her!” Part of your heart went out to Jaemin - he was trying so hard to take care of you and even caused himself pain for it. That explained why he had reacted so negatively when you asked what would happen if he bit you. You wouldn’t have been fine. You would’ve become like him. The thought didn’t cause the anger or disgust you thought it should have. It sounded nice, almost, to be like him. To stay in his safety for eternity.

“Jaemin,” said a new voice. It was strong and rough like tree bark lined his throat. “You can return her back to the real world in just a few more days and you’ll be free of her. It’s not like she would want to stay here anyway, her friends and family are back on Earth. We can keep Jisung home and have him feed on Chenle until he learns his lesson.”

Someone, presumably Jisung, made a wounded noise. “I can control myself, I promise. Don’t make me feed on Chenle, Hyung, he doesn’t taste anywhere near as good.” Definitely Jisung.

“Jisung,” said Jaemin’s voice. “Don’t argue, you brought this on yourself. And me,” he adds as an afterthought.

Jisung’s sullen voice responded, “fine, Hyung, but Chenle isn’t going to be happy either, you know.” You thought maybe Jaemin must have nodded or something because nobody said anything for a while. You turned off the TV, suddenly bored with the program and head full of new questions. The top one on the list was why. Why did you affect them this way? Why did Jaemin treat you so nicely when you were hurting him? Why did Jisung sound like a puppy who had been reprimanded? Why did Jaemin and the other man have the power to ground him, essentially? Then there were the who questions. Who was the man with the voice like tree bark? Who was Chenle, and why wouldn’t he be happy? Lastly were the when questions. When would you be going home? When would you see them again? Would you see them ever again? When would Jisung be allowed to hunt again?

You were so deep in your head that you didn’t notice the door opening and Jaemin coming in, two men behind him, until he stopped and waved a hand in front of you.

“Y/N, you okay? I brought you some people to meet.” He stepped back and you forced your eyes to refocus on what was in front of you. When you looked up at him, he presented the two other guys like he was a car salesman and these were his favorite models. “This is Jisung, you’ve met him already although I don’t know if you remember him.” You nodded, looking over him. He had on a grey crewneck sweatshirt over a pair of black sweatpants today and looked far less terrifyingly beautiful flanked by his hyungs.

“I remember him,” you told them. “You’re the one who bit me.” You didn’t think it was possible for him to look more sheepish than he already did but he managed to, and shrank back so that he was standing half-behind the other man. The other guy had bleached hair falling messily over his forehead, and even though he was shorter than Jisung, he seemed to command your attention more. He had on a green sleeveless shirt that showed off arms rippling with muscles. You gulped, looking up at him, but then he smiled at you. His whole demeanor changed. He felt less like he was about to kill you and more like he might accidentally strangle you to death in a hug. His eyes scrunched up into little crescents and you found yourself smiling back.

“I’m Jeno,” he said, walking forward to shake your hand. “Sorry I didn’t come to visit earlier.” His voice still sounded like bark lined his throat, but less so now that he wasn’t bothering to limit his volume.

“That’s fine,” you replied. “I just woke up earlier today.” You glanced towards Jaemin; he looked like a proud mom watching you interact with his friend. “Jaemin fed me, and since then I’ve just been sitting here watching TV. I can’t find my phone, and even if I did I’m not sure I could walk over to it. My legs are out of practice.”

Jeno smiled again. “That’s pretty common for Jisung’s victims. We found out he has these little back teeth that make it more painful for the people he bites so they usually need more bed rest to recover from the strain on their bodies and the blood loss.”

You nodded, as though that made sense. They still let Jisung hunt with his unpredictability and extra teeth? That seemed a little irresponsible of them, but you supposed that Jeno and Jaemin weren’t that much older than him in the first place. You tried to bring up your next subject subtly.

“Speaking of recovery, when do you think I’ll be going back to Earth?” The change in the room was immediate. Jeno’s smile faltered enough for you to see his eyes, Jaemin’s shoulders slumped, and Jisung’s foot started tapping against the rug. “It’s not that I don’t like it here,” you interjected, “I'm just worried that my, uh, double self will get up to trouble and stuff. What if someone notices it’s not me?”

Jisung looked at Jaemin. “You either did a really bad job of explaining this or she wasn't listening, Hyung.” Jaemin glared at him in response and chose not to dignify the statement with an answer. Jisung huffed at him and turned to you. “It’s you, y’know, back on Earth. Like… when a starfish gets cut in half, both halves grow into full starfish again. Something similar happened to you. Same organism, same you, just two different places. Is that a weird comparison?”

“What he means,” interjected Jeno before you could reply, “is that the you down there has all of your experiences and memories and the same brain. It’s the exact same person as you, just two versions of you. When you go back you won't even have a bite scar.” At this you lifted your hand to rub at the mark on your throat. You saw Jisung’s eyes follow the action and he licked his lips. You put your arm back down into your lap and swallowed, the sound echoing in your head.

Finally Jaemin spoke. “And to answer your question, as soon as we get you strong enough to walk on your own you can go back. I mean technically there’s a body waiting for you down there, but we don’t know what would happen if we sent you back faulty, so we like to be careful.” You laughed at his use of the word faulty and nodded.

“Okay. Do you guys have a portal or something that’ll take me back?” At this all three men burst into laughter and a high pitched squeal joined the mix, coming from the doorway. Yet another man was standing there, thin orange-dyed hair flopping as he doubled over laughing.

“A- a portal,” he wheezed out between laughs. “No, we don’t have a portal.” You threw him a disgruntled look.

“I was just asking…”

Jaemin looked equally off-put and said, “Y/N, this is Chenle, Jisung’s best friend and our second child. Sorry about his lack of a filter.” His lips pursed unhappily and you rushed to reassure him.

“No, that’s okay, I don’t know if that was stupid question. No feelings hurt, he’s fine.” Jaemin looked unconvinced, so you sat up more towards Chenle and reached out a hand. “I’m Y/N.”

“Oh is that your name?” he replied breezily, shaking your hand quickly. “They were right, you do smell good.” Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Jaemin shift protectively.

“Chenle.” His voice came out a growl, raising hairs on the back of your neck. “Don’t you dare.” It was interesting, you thought, how this dynamic worked. From what you had heard with Jisung, Jaemin had always contained himself, like he was reprimanding his favorite child. With Chenle he seemed almost dangerous, like it was possible for him to hurt a fly, and things much bigger than a fly. You wondered if he was this way with all of his patients, or if Chenle just bothered him more with you than usual.

“I’m not going to, mom, chill out a moment.” Chenle, you decided, must be the bad egg of their group. Every family had at least one, and here was theirs. He seemed the most likely to hurt something for the fun of it, and it almost seemed like he should have been the one to attack you, not Jisung. You wondered, in the distant back of your head, whether he had extra teeth for biting like Jisung did. Maybe it was better not to find out.

“Please don’t call me mom,” Jaemin sighed in response, all of the fight leaving him a rush. His muscles were still tense, though, and he ran a hand through his cotton candy colored hair.

“Chenle,” said Jeno, “I think you and Jisung should go talk. He has news for you.” Jisung shuddered slightly, his nod small and tense. You remembered his reaction earlier, when he had been informed that he needed to feed from Chenle for the time being. Chenle looked between Jisung and Jeno and an expression appeared on his face that didn’t seem natural on him - uncomfortable confusion. What you had seen in this past tension filled minute was that he was self assured and rambunctious. Now you wondered if he respected Jeno, regardless of that. You supposed you didn’t really have time to find out, you would be going home as soon as you could walk on your own. Speaking of which-

“I need to use the bathroom again,” you said as Jisung walked out of the house with Chenle right behind him.

“You should try getting up on your own,” Jeno suggested. “The more you sit around the harder it’ll be for your legs to get strong again.” You nodded and used the arm of the couch to haul yourself to your feet. Your knees started shaking again and Jaemin hurried to support you a little, until you felt a little more steady on your feet. Once you did, you tentatively took a tiny step towards the bathroom. Your arms flew out to your sides to help with balance and Jaemin took the mother bird stance, worriedly standing within arm’s length to catch you if you started to collapse. Jeno watched from a few paces away and smiled at you.

“Let’s see if you can get to me, okay? Then we can help if you need support.” You nodded and gritted your teeth, shuffling forward on your weak legs slowly. The good news: you made it to him without falling or using Jaemin’s ever-there assistance. The not so good news: you practically fell into Jeno when you got to him, using his body for support. He helped you find your center of gravity again before acting as a crutch to get you to the bathroom.

“If you need anything,” Jaemin told you, “I’ll be right out here. Don’t over-exert yourself.”

“I’ll be fine, it’s just like one step to the toilet, and there’s a nice strong counter” you assured him, and closed the door behind you as you stepped away from Jeno’s warm strength. Immediately you felt weak again but you reached out to hold on to the edge of the counter while you walked and got safely to the toilet. Your legs screeched at you as you lowered yourself onto the seat and you relaxed a little bit once you were seated. Recovery was going to be hard.

☽༓☾

Two days passed in a blur of pain and people. You met quite a few new people, like the infamous Lucas (who was a giant baby and who adored you), a woman named Joy who had actual red eyes like the legends said, and a man that everyone called Ten. Actually, you weren’t sure if Ten counted as a man. He dropped by Jaemin’s house the third day, right after Jisung and Chenle had just left after getting some flowers from Jaemin’s garden. He walked in on tentacles, long and thick ones that wrapped around the door frame and curled and uncurled as he talked. He muttered something about wishing they would just admit they were gay and asked Jaemin if he happened to have clams. Jaemin, looking amused, supplied him with an entire bucket of the little creatures. Ten gave him a jar in response and flounced out the door without even looking at you.

“Jaemin,” you asked, “what, or who, was that?” Jaemin laughed happily and the sound was so perfect that you wished he would just keep laughing forever.

“Ten is kind of unique,” Jaemin said. “Obviously, he’s got tentacles, which is unusual, and then he’s also not a vampire so none of us can quite figure out how he can get here, to Vahmpyr. But he can see the future, sort of, which is pretty helpful sometimes. Warns us when we’re getting too active and need to be careful of humans. He’s also convinced that Chenle and Jisung are gay and that they just need some guidance.”

You couldn’t decide on a question to ask about these revelations, so you settled for a very intelligent sounding “huh,” and continued your walking around the house. You were doing a lot better now with your exercises and had been able to make it around the room without holding onto anything for support four times now. Jaemin laughed again and you felt yourself actually flinch from the force of his happiness. It was addicting, almost. He went back to his Gaelic scrolls, which he was translating for a man called Kun, who you had yet to meet.

You had a sudden thought and you found yourself needing to talk, to explain about the other day. “Jaemin,” you said, dropping into the seat across from him at the table with a low groan. “The other day when Jisung and Jeno came, you guys were talking outside, you know?” He looked up from the scrolls, giving you a raised eyebrow like ‘so?’

“So I may or may not have listened to your conversation,” you told him, watching as he gave you his full attention, clicking his pen closed and rolling up the scrolls gently. He didn’t look angry, exactly, more apprehensive than anything. Like he was back to worrying about you throwing things and breaking his windows.

“And?” he prompted, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opened them you saw something strange there, like fear. But certainly the immortal and beautiful Jaemin couldn’t be scared of you. You must’ve been interpreting it wrong.

“Well you guys were talking about my smell,” you started slowly. “And, uh, you said that you- that I was causing you pain. And I was just wondering, why keep me around? Why not take me to a human hospital, or just kill me? Or turn me? Why did you make yourself suffer?”

He inhaled deeply and then shivered a little bit. When he spoke, his voice was soft and a little scratchy. “For one, we’ve never had a case like this before. I mean obviously there have been people who have smelled good to me before, but usually I’m able to ignore it. With you… it’s like my vampire body can’t get enough of your scent. It wants to turn you, to keep you, in its selfishness. That part of me is weak, in its greed. And of course I couldn’t kill you, I could barely control myself when Chenle- when he-” Jaemin took a deep breath to steady himself. “He wanted to bite you. You smell good to our whole coven, to everyone who’s met you, at least, which is a first. Thankfully you don’t appeal to Jisung the same way you do to me though, because by now you’d be a full fledged member of the family. Jeno is really good at hiding it, but I could tell he wanted to drink from you too, when you used him to help you walk the other day. I think the only ones not affected by it are Lucas and Ten, although that could be because they’re both gay, I’m not sure.” As an afterthought, he added, “actually Lucas is demisexual but I’ve only ever seen him date guys.”

Skipping over the bit about Lucas’ sexuality, you spoke, horrified. “I’ve been hurting all of you? Seriously, why not just make me go to a regular hospital on Earth?”

“Well it would be a little hard to just give you to a hospital on Earth and be like, ‘here, take this body which may or may not have a vampire bite in its neck,’” Jaemin told you. “And also because I haven’t given up on a patient yet, and I didn’t want the first to be because I can’t control myself. And as to why I didn’t turn you… I didn’t want to take your life away. I still don’t. I think your life is going to be a good one and I don’t want to steal that. That’s why you’re going back tomorrow.”

An empty feeling settled in your chest. “You’re sending me back tomorrow? I still haven’t met so many of your friends though!”

He leveled you with a stare. “The rest of my patients never got to meet any other members of the coven. This was a one and done. You don’t need to know the rest of them. Especially not Yuta or Hyuck, good gracious.”

Who are Yuta and Hyuck? you wanted to ask, but his tone implied the end of the conversation, so you refrained from forming the question. “Okay, uh, I’m going to go sit in the garden.”

Jaemin flashed you a barely-there smile, opening his scrolls again and clicking his pen open. “Mhm. Be careful.”

You went out to sit under a tree in his front yard. Actually there were a lot of trees in his front yard - his house was in a forest. He had neglected to mention that when he first told you about his home and you had found it fascinating how it worked. When you walked out, there wasn’t any path out of the small clearing that housed his cottage. When you imagined a person, though, a tree tunnel would open and you could go any which way you wanted. You had tried imagining your parents the first time Jaemin told you about it and it hadn’t worked. He had explained that it only worked for people on this plane of existence, which made sense. When you had imagined Joy, it had shown you a way to a small town. Jaemin had forbidden you to go anywhere without him in case someone got territorial or hungry and killed you by accident. You respected that, you didn’t want to be murdered, but you wanted to see Lucas, and talk to him. He had fun stories to tell of his best friends. Jaemin seemed a bit huffy. It would be fine to go and see him, right? You’d just go and be back quickly before Jaemin even realized you were gone.

You decided that you just needed to talk to a friend right now and focused your mind on Lucas, finding an apartment building on the outskirts of the largest vampire city you had seen so far. With a little more effort you could find his apartment, although you couldn’t see him. The trees opened and you glanced back at Jaemin’s cottage before setting off.

As you walked down the path you reveled in your ability to walk. After two days of walking in short bursts and trying to regain strength in your legs you were finally able to walk like a normal human being, no flailing arms or stops every few meters to take a break and rest your muscles. It was nice, after so little freedom within Jaemin’s one room cabin. You liked being out here better. You avoided tree limbs and roots as you went, always focused on getting to Lucas. At one point your focus switched from his apartment to a convenience store and you panicked, realizing that you couldn’t go there. There, you might actually get murdered like Jaemin had predicted. He hadn’t nursed you back to health and struggled through your scent just for you to go and get yourself killed. You waited, walking more slowly, until the view at the end of the tunnel switched back to Lucas’ apartment’s front door. You breathed out a sigh of relief and continued on your way.

It was fascinating to you how there was no life in the forest besides the plants. You didn’t hear or see any insects or birds and you wondered if that was because they were afraid of the vampires or if they just didn’t exist on this plane. You decided to ask Lucas when you got to his house. After a while you realized that the image at the end of the tree tunnel was no longer a moving image of where you wanted to go, but rather the actual thing, growing bigger as you progressed down the path. You found yourself increasing your pace in your hurry to see Lucas.

When you left the comfort and relative safety of the forest, you nearly ran across the street separating the apartment complex from the trees. You stumbled at one point and almost fell to the pavement but recovered and kept going. You entered the main door and started up the stairs, still hurrying a little faster than your body thought was necessary. You speed walked until you reached the third floor and started looking through the numbers, looking for a door marked with ‘311,’ the one you had seen in the forest while looking for Lucas. After a good few minutes searching, you located the hallway his apartment was in and walked down it, looking at the odd numbers on the right. They counted down from 39, so you had a ways to go. Part of you wondered if the vampires just didn’t care about your presence, because apparently your scent was pretty strong and you were sure that you were stinking up the whole hallway with your human-ness, but nobody had come to murder you yet.

When you finally got to the door labeled with a faded ‘311,’ you stopped to take a breath before knocking on the door. An uncomfortable pause (where you wondered if Lucas was out after all) later, the door opened and you breathed out a sigh of relief, only for the air to stick in your throat at the sight of a man shorter than Lucas, but much scarier.

He had dark brown hair, obviously lightened but only a bit. It fell over his forehead and stopped just short of his eyes. His lips set in a grim line as he looked over you before they pulled back into what should have been a heart stopping smile, but was instead a snarl, a grimace of distrust and anger. The feature that stuck out most to you were his eyes. You imagined that when he was happy, his eyes would glow with an inner light. Now they were dark and they promised violence.

No sooner had you come to this conclusion before he had you pinned against the opposite wall. “Give me one good reason,” he hissed, “why I shouldn’t just kill you.” His arm pressed into your throat, keeping you pinned against the wall, on your tiptoes to accommodate the height of his arm.

Lucas, I came to see Lucas, you tried to say, but it got stuck on the way out of your throat and instead what came out was a weak, “Lu…” followed by a wispy groan. The man furrowed his brow and moved to hold you against the wall by your arms so you could speak. “Lucas,” you gasped, air rushing back into your body and allowing you to speak once more. “Friend.” The man put you completely down now, on the floor, and you moved to massage your throat before his eyes, dark and threatening, halted your movement. Lucas certainly has a knack for choosing friends, you thought.

“Don’t move,” he growled, “Or I’ll throw you out our living room window. It may not kill you, but it will hurt.” Then he turned around slightly and called, “Xuxi! There’s someone here to see you!”

You heard shuffling inside before the figure of Lucas appeared, tall and thick and seeming like safety incarnate in the presence of someone as terrifying as the man who still had one hand next to your head.

“Yang?” he asked. “Is everything alright?”

The man, Yang, shifted so that Lucas could see your face. “This one just came knocking on our door and said he wanted to see you. Do you know her?”

Lucas gasped slightly and sped up, blurring a little, so that he reached you in less than a second. “Oh my gosh, Y/N, are you okay? Yangyang, this is the human that’s been staying with Jaemin for the past week, she’s my friend!”

“Hey Lucas,” you said weakly, finally reaching up to massage your throat now that you had someone to protect you from being thrown out the living room window. “I’m okay, I think. Just a little lightheaded.” Part of you wanted to add, Is his name Yang or Yangyang? but you figured now wasn’t the time to ask.

A strange look crossed Lucas’ face. “Well, I’m glad you’re alright, come inside and sit down, I’ll get you some water.” You followed him into the apartment, Yang (Yangyang?) behind you. He still slightly scared you and you stayed as close to Lucas as possible. Lucas spoke again as he grabbed a water bottle for you. You noted idly that it was Dasani. “But, uh, didn’t Jaemin tell you to, like, not come out here? So you didn’t get murdered? Cause that could’ve ended a lot worse.”

“Not you too!” you cried, exaggerating the syllables. “I know I could’ve died, but I wanted to see my friend! How hard is that to understand? Did it bother you so much that I wanted to see you?”

Lucas figited uncomfortably. “Well I appreciate that you came to see me, that’s really nice of you. It’s just that Jaemin was right. This really isn’t a safe place for you to be. I mean Yangyang could’ve killed you if he didn’t have such a heart of gold.” You threw a disbelieving glance towards the man in question and he shrugged, mouth tugging up in a mischievous grin.

“Okay, I mean, I can go back if you don’t want me here, I have to be back before Jaemin realizes I’m gone anyway,” you said, drinking more of your water. Yangyang and Lucas both froze.

“You didn’t get his permission?” Lucas asked in a tone that confused you. Was he scared of Jaemin? “Or tell him you were going for a walk? Or anything?”

“No, of course not. He would’ve said no!” you protested unhappily. This was not how you imagined this trip going.

“Okay,” Lucas said. “I’m taking you back right now. Jaemin will- well, he won’t kill me, but he’ll be scarily close if he finds out you came here.”

With a heavy sigh, you stood up. You knew that if he needed to, he could just throw you over his shoulder and carry you all the way back to Jaemin’s cottage. Darned vampire strength. “Fine.”

You got down the hallway and into the stairwell before Lucas tensed up again. “Shoot,” he muttered, looking down the stairs below. You couldn’t hear or see anything, and you were about to tell him so when he sighed and you heard a pitter patter like rain, growing louder by the second.

Moments later Jamin appeared in front of you, pink hair mussed and eyes wild with a mix of fear and anger. For a moment he didn’t even speak, just glared at you. The fear faded from his eyes. When he did speak, the words seemed like poison being spit off the tongue of a snake.

“I can’t believe you,” he seethed. “I kept you in my house, fed you, nursed you back to health. I let you use all of my things and was even going to send you home once you were perfectly healthy again. I gave you one rule. One! Just to keep you safe! And you go and break it. You could have died, Y/N, do you understand that? I did everything in my power to keep you in an environment where you weren’t in danger! I didn’t allow Hyuck to come over, I made sure that you were prepared to meet Lucas and Jeno and even Jisung! But all of my efforts faded to nothing when you opened that doorway to the city. I’m taking you home right now, I can’t bear to keep you here any longer, not when you obviously have no sense of self preservation!”

He picked you up before you could even blink and you felt a sharp wind on your face as he ran home. His steps sounded like raindrops falling on pavement, sharp but small, a pinprick of sound in an otherwise silent stairwell. Lucas had disappeared from view in less than a second and you shut your eyes against the vertigo of being carried at such a speed. Everything blurred, everything was indistinct and most things weren’t even worthy of notice. Jaemin smelled like ink, and you had space in the very back of your mind to wonder if he had spilled his, in his haste to find you. It didn’t seem like a very vampire-like thing to do.

A few moments later you entered the canopy of the forest and every once in a while you heard a stick break under his foot or a rock get catapulted out of the way. Then you felt the sun on your back again and you gasped as Jaemin dumped you onto the warm grass, standing tall before you. He said something in a language you didn’t know - it sounded vaguely like Latin - and the grass fell out from under you as the ground opened up and you fell into space.

☽༓☾

When you woke up the next morning to your alarm, you wondered briefly if your entire experience with Jaemin and the other vampires was a dream. The puncture wounds that had been on your neck were utterly nonexistent, and there was no evidence on you that you had even left the comfort of your bed. On the other hand, you had clear memories of your time in Vahmpyr, short as it was. You remembered how it smelled and how the trees had felt as you walked outside. You remembered the feeling of the cool granite of the bathroom countertop. Mostly you remembered being with Lucas, Jeno, Jisung, and Chenle. You remembered almost dying at the hands of Lucas’ roommate and you remembered the terrifying flight in Jaemin’s arms.

Jaemin.

You grimaced at yourself in the mirror and spit out your toothpaste. There was no way your mind could have made up someone as excruciatingly kind and beautiful as Jaemin was. At the same time you felt anger bubble up inside of you. He hadn’t even given you a chance to say goodbye - he had just put you through to your Earthly self without any words between the two of you. You hadn’t said goodbye to Lucas or Jeno either, nor had you seen the rest of your new acquaintances. The anger flared, hot against your insides, and you could swear you actually felt your chest twinge. You spat out the last of your toothpaste and replaced your toothbrush in its holder, going to get ready for your day.

The next few days were spent alternately missing the simplicity of life on Vahmpyr and being angry at Jaemin. Assignments piled onto your shoulders and in addition to that, you discovered some sort of disconnect between you and the part of you that had stayed on Earth while you were out. That part of you seemed to dismiss your time in Vahmpyr as something it had dreamed up all on its own. It didn’t acknowledge you and liked to take control of your body whenever you weren’t paying full attention to it. Every time it did that you felt the twinge in your chest again, except it got more and more painful. You started having headaches that the other part of you didn’t seem to feel but which pressed against your skull like tiny war hammers thudding into the bone by your temples and occasionally your eyes.

Your vision would go blurry and you started having lapses of consciousness, only to wake up and find yourself doing just fine with your other part in charge. During these lapses you would dream of being in Vahmpyr again, and you saw Lucas smiling with Yangyang, Chenle rolling his eyes at Jisung before hugging him tightly. Other men you didn’t know and other women you hadn’t met also flew across the screen of your eyes but they disappeared quickly. Ten even passed by once, haughtily scrolling past everyone until he sidled up to a tall man with long blond hair who smiled down at him and pressed a gentle kiss to one of Ten’s tentacles. A man with red hair and an eyebrow slit served coffee to a man who chewed like a rabbit. A group of three guys held up a sign that said “Go Taemin!” as a group played football. A woman in a suit jacket over jean shorts sat with a box of papers, crying. Joy played a game with other girls where they tried to push lockers over on each other. Everything (with the exception of the lockers) looked like fun. It was better than Earth, at any rate. Every night you went to bed wondering if you might just die by morning and leave the other half of yourself behind to control the body. You were just along for the ride at this point.

The evening of your fourth day back on Earth you went to sit outside the dorm building on a bench, just for some fresh air. For once you had control of the body and you let your head tip back, closing your eyes and just feeling. The bench pressed up against your back in a way that hurt slightly, but your body had been wracked with pain for two days straight and it didn’t ache so much as behind your eyes or inside your skull. The evening breeze blew across your eyelids and brought with it the scent of sun-warmed dirt.

It smelled like Jaemin, that first morning you woke up in his house. When he had helped you across the cottage towards the bathroom and been outlined by the sun, when he had made you soup and sat with you on the couch while he explained where you were and what he was.

Your body shook with a particularly painful pound on the inside of your ribs. You let yourself relax against the bench again and the sensations enveloped you once more. You felt yourself let go of your body on Earth and float away, less falling and more weightlessness, floating away on a wind that smelled of sun on dirt and felt like arms wrapping around you while rain fell on summer-warmed pavement. You floated away on this wind and it lifted you endlessly until you nodded off, finally free of the pains that had kept you company for the past few days. You wondered if perhaps you had died of it, if being back on Earth had perhaps been more detrimental to you than beneficial.

Then your back hit something hard and the breath was knocked from your lungs, waking you up again and telling you that something had gone very very wrong or very very well. You gasped air back into your body and rolled over weakly, now in a body you recognized as the one you inhabited on Vahmpyr. Grass poked your inner arms and you pushed yourself up to sitting with your legs crossed. You massaged your chest as you inhaled and found yourself miraculously free of pain, aside from the slight burn of breath inhaled too quickly after loss of oxygen. The war hammers in your head had vacated the premises and the aches of your ribs had subsided, making it easier to breath and just sit without drawing in pained gasps.

You registered a return of cold as a shadow fell over you and looked up to see none other than Chenle, with Jisung behind him. Did they never go anywhere without each other? Well, besides hunting.

“Y/N?” He gaped down at you, and you looked back up at him.

“The one and only,” you said, before you realized that didn’t apply to you anymore. “Well, one of only two in existence.”

He laughed that weird dolphin laugh he had again and reached out a hand to help you up. You took it, standing unsteadily on two feet that didn’t ache the moment you put weight on them. “What’re you doing back here? Jaemin-hyung said he sent you back to Earth.”

You feel the corners of your mouth tug down almost instinctively at the mention of Jaemin. “He did. I don’t think Earth agreed with me,” you told him. Jisung walked forward and looked you up and down.

“Maybe we should take you back to Jaeminnie hyung, he’ll know what to do.”

You groaned. “I really don’t want to deal with him at the moment.”

“We can take him to Kun-ge,” Chenle interjected smoothly. “He’ll know better than Jaemin-hyung anyway, he’s been a doctor and a vampire longer.” A side of Chenle appeared that you hadn’t seen yet, a side that took charge in a way that wasn’t just insulting anyone near him. Maybe he wasn’t so bad after all. He took your hand with one of his and grabbed Jisung’s arm with the other.

“Come on, let’s go see Kun-ge!”

☽༓☾

Kun, as it happened, lived in the same building as Lucas. Actually he lived one apartment over, behind the door labeled ‘313.’ When he opened the door he seemed strangely unsurprised to see you there, just breathed out a sigh and let you in. He had nice light brown hair that worked well with his skin tone and eyes that smiled even when he wasn’t. He had this aura of parenting around him, like he took care of everyone he knew. It was comfortable to be around him from the start. Once Chenle had explained where he found you, Kun sat you down and asked exactly what had happened.

“Listen,” he said seriously. “I’ve never seen a human react the way you did. Nobody has ever come back, from what I know. We have to figure out exactly what happened, why you came back, and how to get you back to Earth.”

You inhaled deeply, relishing in the painless breath. “Okay, uh, I’m not really sure where to start,” you told him.

“Tell me about how you got sent home.”

“Okay. So, I left Jaemin’s cottage to come and see Lucas and I guess Jaemin is a lot scarier when he gets mad, because he was not happy when he found out I had left. He did this, like, superfast running thing, very Twilight, and carried me to this random clearing, I guess, I didn’t look around much.” You paused to let Kun write that down on his very professional looking clipboard, but he waved you on. Right, he was a vampire. He could write stuff fast.

“So he sort of dumped me on the ground and said something in a language I didn’t know, it sounded like Latin but I’m not sure. Then the ground sort of opened up and I fell and fell and fell until I rejoined my, uh, Earthly body.” You paused to take a breath and think about how to convey what happened when you got back to Earth.

“When I got back there was this weird disconnect with my body. Like, uh, there was me, in my body, and there was also this other part of me, the part of me that stayed behind when I came here the first time. That other part sort of took the main control of the body we lived in, and it felt like I was along for the ride. It liked to pretend that I wasn’t there, that my time here in Vahmpyr wasn’t real. It was weird. Then a little into my stay, I started getting these super bad pains all over my body.”

Kun interrupted you by holding up a finger. “How long were you home before the pains started?”

You thought back, struggling to pinpoint when they had started. “I think maybe a little longer than twenty four hours? When I got back I woke up in that body, and about one sleep later I started getting the pains, which would be like twenty five hours. Twenty four and a half, maybe. At first it was just these weird twinges in my chest, like my ribs were popping every time I took a breath, then it progressed. I got these horrible headaches, and my chest hurt all the time, and walking felt like attacking my feet, and my neck was always super achy. The thing is, my other half didn’t feel any of that. It was just my half of our consciousness. Then about on my fourth day back I went outside and sat on the bench outside my dorm. I laid back and, uh, it felt like I died or something. I just felt my consciousness leave the body and I guess the other half is still there living down there and now I’m here.”

Kun, Chenle, and Jisung all sat on the couch together, Kun looking over his notes while the other two guys just sat in silence. After a minute Kun spoke. “I don’t really know what happened to you, but I’m almost certain that your connection to your human self is gone. Or at least, your Earthly self. I don’t think we can send you back anymore, I’m sorry.” He looked at you, eyes full of remorse. You expected to mirror that feeling, but you discovered that it didn’t bother you so much. The other half of yourself would keep all of your friends and family from having to mourn you, and you could stay here, painless.

“I’m actually kind of glad about that,” you told them, and Chenle’s head snapped from picking at his jeans to look at you.

“Glad?” he demanded, incredulous. “To stay here?”

“Well yeah, I mean I was in pain most of the time I was back on Earth so it’s not like I’m eager to go back there. Plus, since I didn’t actually die nobody has to mourn me. And part of the time I was like… seeing Vahmpyr. Like is Ten dating this super tall guy with blonde hair? And Joy was pushing lockers over on her friends? And you two!” You turned an accusatory finger at Jisung and Chenle. “You two are adorable together!”

Jisung sighed. “Not you too…”

Kun shushed him. “You could see what was going on here in Vahmpyr?”

“Well, sort of,” you told him. “I saw that Lucas and Yangyang were having, like, a picnic?”

Kun’s eyebrows furrowed and he muttered, “I knew they had one without me.”

“I also saw this guy with red hair giving coffee to a man who sort of chewed like a bunny. And there was this group of three guys holding up a sign that said “Go Taemin!” I think, and I guess Taemin must have been playing football with the others I could see, although I couldn’t recognize any of the people playing. Oh, and there was this lady with really pretty hair who had a box of papers and she was just, like, sitting there and crying. She had the part of her hair near her neck bleached and the outer layers were still black, and she was wearing a suit jacket with jean shorts, which is kind of a weird combination.”

Kun looked over his notes. “That’s really interesting. All of those things have happened since you left, definitely. Joy and her friends like to play games where they try to kill each other, because they’re all immortal. The red haired man was probably Taeyong, and the bunny man would be Doyoung. Ten is dating Johnny, and yes, he is pretty tall and has blonde hair. I haven’t seen Taemin-hyung in a while so I don’t know if he’s playing football again or not. I don’t know about the woman with the cool hair either.”

“Definitely Taeyeon-noona,” Jisung interjected. “She broke up with her boyfriend a few days ago, and she does have hair dyed like that right now.”

Kun raised his eyebrows in curiosity. “Huh, I hope she’s doing okay. Actually I think maybe we should worry more about whoever she broke up with, she’s not exactly good with breakups.”

As though it’s a secret, Jisung’s next words came out in a whisper, and he leaned closer to Chenle and Kun. You had to strain a little to hear. “I heard it was a human. He, like, got super insecure about the fact that she wasn’t aging with him and broke up with her. It’s killing her. She really liked that guy.”

“Why did she get with him in the first place?” Chenle sounded absolutely confused. “She knew it would end like this. That’s how the last two ended.”

“I don’t know, but now I’m really worried for the guy,” said Kun. “We might have to cover up for her.” The implications of his words sank in and you made a small sound. All three men snapped their heads up and it looked as though they forgot you were there.

“Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry Y/N! Do you have anywhere to stay where you’ll be safe for at least a few days? Jaemin’s cottage should be pretty easy to stay hidden in.”

“She doesn’t want to go and see him after what happened,” Chenle supplied helpfully. “I’m taking her back to my place once we’re done here.” Kun appeared to consider that, and then nodded his approval.

“That sounds alright. Tomorrow we can go out and get her some things to make her stay more comfortable. Maybe we can find one of the Outer Plots to put her on.”

“Outer Plots?” you asked, because the way he said it demanded capitalization in your head.

“They’re sort of exactly what they sound like,” Kun explained. “There are these pieces of land around the edges of the towns that nobody really lives on but they’re solid places to live, if we can get a good one. It’s a little bit like Jaemin’s land out there, lot’s of forest, so we can set up tree tunnels for you to get here fast, if you need to.”

You nodded. “That does sound pretty good. I don’t know what I’m going to do though, it’s not like I have all that many hobbies. I was midway through getting my bachelor’s when I left.”

“That’s fine,” Chenle said. “I have plenty of things to keep you entertained, and we can get some of the other guys to keep you company if we’re busy. There are a lot of us with a lot of open time. I also have a ton of extra textbooks from learning languages, so if you want you can spend your life becoming fluent in Japanese, Latin, French, German, Scottish Gaelic, Hawaiian, or one of the others I have. Or multiple, if you learn fast.”

“Thanks Chenle.” He wasn’t actually so bad, you thought. He had brought you to Kun and he was offering to let you use his house and his things. “I might just take you up on that.”

“You guys should probably leave now, actually,” Kun said. “At human speeds you’ll get home right on time.”

Chenle checked his watch and nodded. “He’s right. We should get going.”

You thanked Kun again and Chenle led you out the door, Jisung following behind you. You separated ways with him once you left the apartment building, his figure disappearing swiftly into the trees. Once you blinked there was no finding him again.

You walked behind Chenle quietly, choosing to observe your surroundings. You didn’t see much in the way of low quality or old houses here. It seemed as though a lower class had been eradicated entirely and the vampires could choose where they wanted to live. When you asked him how that was possible, Chenle laughed that peculiar screech of his and said, “when you’re reborn into a family of beings that has been around for millenia, you accumulate some shared wealth. Especially when some of the coven members have doctorate degrees and work on Earth full time, and some of us had familial connections as well, like money left in wills and such.”

You nodded. “So you guys are basically like the elite class of the universe.”

“Pretty much. My house is probably the biggest you’ll ever be in, because I like to splurge a little bit. Unfortunately you might get lost, though, and if you do, just call for me. I’ll make sure to be listening all night in case you need me.”

“It’s that big?” you asked in disbelief. “Do you live in Buckingham Palace?”

He grinned, showing off his incisors. “Bigger.”

“And you live alone?”

“Well, I haven’t always. Jisung and I will probably have sleepovers for all of eternity, and whenever a new coven starts they stay with me for a few days while they get their own living quarters set up, but for the most part , yes. I don’t actually spend a ton of time in the house, it’s more just for the sensation of owning a building that large.”

You shook your head. “As a broke college student, I find that completely unfair. I was working two jobs just to keep my head above water and you’re on this alternate plane just chilling in your house that’s bigger than Buckingham Palace.”

He smiled again. “Nobody said life was fair, Y/N. Nobody.”

☽༓☾

Three days and a shocking amount of Gaelic verbs later (you only got lost in Chenle’s palace four times), a house was ready for you to move in. Johnny and Ten had furnished it for you, and Chenle had explained that the two of them were the stylists of the coven, for the most part. The mysterious Yuta had also taken part in finding high quality fabrics to fit their vision. You had thanked the whole group of vampires who helped with the house profusely for not only building said house, but also for getting you a bunch of comfortable furniture. They had smiled and said it was their pleasure and all of the typical things, but what really stood out was Ten’s reaction. He had barely paid attention to you - he barely paid attention to anyone besides Johnny and Yangyang, who he called their baby - this whole time. When you had thanked him, however, he wrapped all but four of his tentacles around you in a surprisingly dry hug.

“It’s refreshing to have you around,” he had told you. “I’m glad we could help you get settled.”

Later as you reflected on it, you figured that it probably got pretty boring to know what was going to happen all of the time, and maybe you had disrupted the usual happenings of his visions and the vampires in Vahmpyr. Maybe you made other people happy too, to have a new person around.

One person who didn’t seem thrilled to have you back was Jaemin. Every time you made eye contact with him (twice, over the three days), he grimaced and turned away like the sight of you hurt him. Maybe he was mad that you were back within scenting range. He wouldn’t get near you, so it wasn’t like you could ask.

While settling into your new normal, you discovered that Chenle was actually a good friend. His love language was insults and pointed jabs, but he actually did care for his friends quite a lot. He had watched Jaemin from across your front yard as they were laying down grass seed and sighed.

“I wish he would just talk to you,” he told you sadly. “I’ve never, in all our years together, seen him like this. I’m not sure anyone has, even Taeil-hyung.” He didn’t elaborate on who Taeil was, and you didn’t press him. Was Jaemin really so mad that he couldn’t even look at you?

“Well,” you had said, “I don’t want to talk to him. He dumped me through an interplanar tunnel without warning me and yelled at me like the world was ending when I took a walk. I don’t think there’s much to be talked about. He must hate me.” Over Chenle’s shoulder, you had seen Jaemin flinch slightly. How strange. Part of you hoped that he felt the same pain that you did, a sort of ache that told you that you were unwanted. Another part of you murmured quietly in the back of your mind that you were being petty. You had chosen to ignore it for the time being. You were being petty, but so was he. He had thousands of years on you, so he should be the mature one, right?

“I don’t think he hates you. I think you both need to grow up and talk like adults,” Chenle had said flatly, orange hair seeming to flash in the sun. Jaemin sort of curled in on himself.

“Tell that to Mister Millenia before you lecture me on growing up,” you had replied. Then you reopened your Gaelic textbook and pretended to bury yourself in it, blatantly ignoring Chenle’s judgemental gaze.

“Fine,” he had muttered angrily. “You can both suffer for all I care.” Then he had stalked off and started pounding fence posts into the dirt so hard that Jeno had to tell him to take a break before he broke them.

You found yourself thinking about that moment as you walked through the trees, ironically on your way to see Jaemin. Since you had close to nothing to do , you had offered yourself up as an errand person to anyone that would hire and found yourself working for Kun running scrolls across Vahmpyr while he translated and examined them. It kept you busy and in shape, and Kun seemed happy with your service. This morning he had sent you to get the Scottish scroll back from Jaemin, along with a few other documents to pick up and drop off. You had saved this one for last, procrastinating on having to see him again. As his cottage came into full view, you sighed, preparing yourself for a cold shoulder and a very quick visit.

“Jaemin?” you called, knocking on the front door. It was closed for once, usually he kept it open for better air circulation. A moment later the door opened and there he stood, in all his cotton candy colored glory.

“Y/N? What’re you doing here?”

“Kun sent me, he wants that Scottish scroll back. He said he hopes you’re done translating it since you’re had it for a few weeks now,” you replied, willing your voice to stay professional. You were here for the scroll. When Jaemin didn’t reply, you looked up at him. “So? Where is it?”

“I don’t know why he sent you out like this, but I sent that scroll back three days ago, on our agreed upon date. I know he got it, because he sent me back a thank you with those little stickers he likes to use.”

“Oh. Um, I’ll just go then,” you muttered, turning around as you spoke. “Sorry I bothered you.”

Suddenly a hand was wrapped around your own, keeping you in place. Your breath caught in your throat, remembering the last time that had happened with a vampire. All that came out of Jaemin’s mouth, however, was, “Can I talk to you? Please?”

“Jaemin, please let me go,” you said, trying to keep your tone even. His hand released you immediately and you stepped a pace away from him and turned around so that you could see his face. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Well, uh, do you want some tea? I have some inside…” It was clear he hadn’t expected you to actually agree and he needed to collect his thoughts, so you nodded and he led you inside, sitting you on the familiar couch while he busied himself in the kitchen.

“I actually wanted to apologize,” Jaemin said after a minute. “I worried so much about protecting you that I forgot to let you enjoy your time here. It scared me how good you were at adjusting to this world, how much you liked being with Lucas and my other friends… I’m not used to humans reacting positively.” The kettle whistled and he took a moment to pour water into the mugs, steam rising gently from them in silvery whisps.

Once he poured the water, he continued speaking. “I wanted to make sure you knew that it wasn’t all fun and games here. I didn't want you to go looking for a place in our community because I was worried that you’d get killed. Vampires are pretty possessive of their property on Vahmpyr, for the most part, and you went right into one of the biggest apartment complexes within a day’s travelling distance - and that’s vampire distance, not human distance. Lucas told me about what happened with Yangyang, and I almost tore Yang’s arm off, I was so mad. He could have actually murdered you, and I couldn’t stomach the thought. What if Lucas hadn’t been home? What if Yangyang hadn’t given you that one moment to explain yourself? What if you had met another one of us on the stairs, without any protection? It terrified me to consider.” He walked over, a mug carried in each hand, and sat on the couch, leaving a large space in between you. It was strangely reminiscent of that first day, when he had explained Vahmpyr to you over soup.

“Of course,” Jaemin started, and you refocused. “That was only after I had sent you home, that he told me about that. When I dumped you in that tunnel, it was just fear of you being unsafe that made me so mad. The fact that you would willingly put yourself in danger, when I valued you so highly? Inconceivable. And yet, it happened. So I made another big mistake: I sent you home. I thought you would be better off there, regardless of what was happening. I knew you were healthy enough to walk to the city, so I thought you were fine. Apparently not. I heard from Chenle and Kun what happened to you back on Earth and it broke another part of me apart. I hurt you, in sending you back, not just in temporary emotional pain, but in physical pain that persisted through your entire stay. We still don’t know why you reacted the way you did, but it scared me to hear of it. I had made yet another mistake that could have killed you.” He paused to take a sip of his tea, and you did too. It was pleasant, not too hot and not too cold, just warming up your insides.

“Then the last straw came when you said I must hate you…” Jaemin’s voice broke slightly. “If anything, it’s the exact opposite, I realized I missed you more than I should, given you should be just a patient. I wanted to hug you the second I saw you, but you looked so mad to see me that I couldn’t do it. I was literally building a house for you and still couldn’t look you in the eyes for more than a moment. So I went home in shame, knowing that you were right, with thousands of years under my belt, I should be the more mature one. I decided that the next time I saw you, I would talk to you, no matter the circumstances. I couldn’t have you keep living thinking that I hated you. I didn’t actually expect you to come in when I asked. I thought I’d have to follow you through the woods, honestly.”

He fell silent, took another sip of his tea, and for the first time, you spoke. “I really didn’t want to talk to you. I wanted you to realize how much I hurt from your actions, but I think maybe I took that a little too far. I knew you were protecting me, but I really wanted to see somebody, and I knew you wouldn’t let me out, so I ran away. I didn’t really know what I was getting into. I probably should have asked you to accompany me, at least. Not my finest moment.”

Jaemin laughed weakly, taking another sip of tea. “Not mine either. I should have trusted you more.”

“And I shouldn’t have run off without even asking for your help..”

He smiled at you, that gorgeous little smile that made your heart smile back.

“Friends?” you asked.

He hesitated for only a moment, a strange sort of disappointment flashing across his face, before he was extending his hand to meet yours. “Friends.”

You grinned at him, finishing your tea. “Great. Now I need to go yell at Kun for sending me out to see you when I didn’t need to.”

“Isn’t it good that he did?” Jaemin asked with a confused frown on his face.

“Well yes, but it was a very Cupid-like thing to do, wasn’t it? I don’t tolerate my friends trying to play Cupid with myself and my other friends.” You stood up and walked your empty tea cup to the kitchen. “Do you want to come?”

He laughed. “No, you can just tell me all about it tomorrow, okay?”

You nodded. “Alright.”

You walked out into the cool twilight and started going towards Kun’s house. He had a big storm coming.

☽༓☾

A few days later, you were sitting in Jaemin’s cottage again, Gaelic textbook open on your lap. Since he was close to fluent in the language, he was helping you learn it. It wasn’t an extraordinarily difficult language, but some of the words were hard to pronounce and he had been eager to help you.

“Look here,” he said, pointing at some words on the page. “Say this for me.”

“Tha gaol agam ort,” you replied. He grinned.

“That’s how it’s written, but not how it’s said. Okay, now listen to me pronounce it. ‘Ha geul akeum orsht’. Repeat that for me.”

“‘Ha geul akeum orsht’? That’s how you say that?” you demanded. “This is like French! They don’t spell things anywhere close to how they’re said!”

“Unfortunately, most languages don’t. The same goes for Korean verb conjugations and English words and, yes, French everything, but it’s just learning new rules. After a while you understand it. I promise that you’ll get it eventually. You have the rest of your life.”

You looked over at him suddenly, questions rising to the forefront over Gaelic words. “Am I really going to stay here forever? Am I never going to see Earth again, just sit here as a useless human surrounded by powerful and immortal vampires, until I die?”

He seemed surprised by the questions. “I’m not sure any of us had really thought about it,” he said carefully.

“You all had just accepted the fact that I was stuck on your plane of existence with nothing worth doing to do? When am I going to use Scottish Gaelic, Jaemin? When will this actually come in handy, except to distract me? I’m here to do nothing, and the moment I go back to Earth, I start suffering. What am I meant to do here, Jaem?”

Jaemin gently lifted the textbook from your lap and put in on his coffee table, then pulled you into his side for a hug. You snuggled into him, inhaling the scent of sunshine and warm earth. Comfort.

“I don’t know exactly how to make you feel better,” Jaemin murmured from somewhere above your head. “But we all like having you around, you know that. It’s nice to have someone young around. We haven’t turned a human in about thirty years, so the novelty has worn off, and here we have this beautiful creature who is new in so many ways. You’re refreshing, and you’re human, so you’ll continue to be refreshing.”

“Well, thank you,” you said, muffled in his side. “But still, I don’t feel like I have anything worth doing here. You can all do anything I can do, just ten times faster. I have no unique skills or brains or anything. So what am I meant to do? I can’t even go spy on the other humans or anything because I can’t go back to Earth!”

Jaemin shifted you a little bit in his arms and started rubbing your shoulder softly. “Is there anything you particularly enjoy doing? Maybe you could do art, or gardening? Or I have this book of old forms of witchcraft?”

You turned to face him. “You have a book of witchcraft sitting around?”

He released you and rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I found a papyrus scroll in this ruined Egyptian city, and I kept it just ‘cause it was cool. Then I learned hieroglyphics so that I could translate it and made a copy. Unfortunately, witchcraft is… not my strong suit, and I’m somewhat afraid of giving it away in case I never see it again. I spent a lot of time and energy on that translation.”

“And you want me to use it?” you asked, confused. Why on earth would he give it to you if he didn’t trust the perfectly composed vampires around him? “I mean it sounds super cool, but aren’t you worried about it being in my hands? I am a human, after all.”

“Well-”

Jaemin was cut off at that moment by a sharp knock on the door. At least, you assumed it was a knock, it sounded a little bit more like a wet thwap than a knock. Jaemin blurred slightly as he ran over to the door and opened it, revealing cloudy skies dropping rain onto a harried-looking Ten.

“Ten-hyung?” he asked, sounding as confused as you felt. “I’d say this is a nice surprise, but why are you here? I thought today was your Earth day? Is everything alright?”

“Yes,�� Ten said, gasping slightly as he spoke. “I ran straight here from the Pacific.” You took a second to think about the fact that Ten was swimming in the Pacific Ocean before refocusing on him. “-future just completely shifted, a few minutes ago. Y/N-” He turned to face you completely. “Whatever you two just did, it caused you to become a vampire in the future.”

“But we were just talking?” you told him, confused. “It wasn’t like Jaem was about to bite me.” You turned to Jaemin. “Right?”

He looked at you solemnly. “If you were going to have been bitten by me, it would have already happened. Ten-hyung, are you sure that she’s a vampire in your future? Can you see more details?”

Ten closed his eyes briefly like he was trying to focus, and in the meantime a tentacle wrung the salt and rain water out of his hair. Jaemin wrinkled his nose at the growing puddle. Ten spoke, eyes fluttering open slowly. “In the parts I can see, she’s covered in this, like, tree? It’s a little bit fuzzy. It’s green, and looks like it has brown splotches like branches. Maybe a tree falls on her or something. Anyway, you take one look at him and bite her. She goes limp... After that? Fuzzy scenes of her waking up and you taking her running. Like, really running. Vampire running.”

Jaemin took a shaky breath. “Okay, I don’t know why our conversation would have caused a tree to fall on her in the future. We were talking about, like, Earth and art and stuff. Oh, and my witchcraft book.”

Ten’s eyes refocused on him, narrowing slightly. “You’re going to give her your witchcraft book after not letting me touch it? That’s a little underhanded.” His eyes narrow briefly before looking at you. “But maybe that’s it. You’ll just have to make sure that she doesn’t practice any witchcraft under the cover of trees. Otherwise I think you’ll be fine. I’ll keep you updated.”

“Thanks Ten,” you murmured. “For warning us and stuff.”

“Of course. Now I need to go back to the Pacific. Ta ta!” Ten waved to you and walked out the door.

“Well,” Jaemin said, “that’s some news, huh?”

“Yeah. Do you think that it’s okay for me to practice witchcraft with this in my future?”

“I do. I think you’ll be fine. We’ll keep you as safe as we possibly can, and if you become a vampire… at least it won’t be because I gave in. I’ll still be strong.”

“Jaem, I don’t think that was ever in question.”

“It was for me.” His voice went dark momentarily, then he brightened up again. “At any rate, I think we can safely teach you some things that’ll keep life interesting.”

You grinned. “Then let’s get started.”

☽༓☾

You were surprised at how easily witchcraft came to you, in the beginning. Jaemin insisted that you had some sort of gift with it, and as much as you told him that was silly, it seemed possible. You could easily understand instructions on Jaemin’s careful translations that even he couldn’t decipher. You gave up on Gaelic after a while, focused more on learning the original Egyptian Hieroglyphs of the spells and potions. You trusted Jaemin’s precise translation, but there was something unique about seeing an instruction in a new language and being able to understand it.

Days turned to weeks as you experimented with the materials growing in and around Vahmpyr. Taeil, who you eventually met, turned out to be a valuable resource. He was an avid collector of ancient written works, including but not limited to an original Greek copy of The Odyssey, Chinese bamboo books saved from the book burnings of Emperor Qin Shi Huang, and an exact replica of the Rosetta Stone. Taeil must have been ancient himself to have all of these valuables, but he still had the energy of the far younger members of their coven, which amazed you. He showed you different specialties of different cultures within witchcraft, ideas born from scrolls and tablets, bamboo strips and wax blocks. It was far more information than you could ever decipher or use during your short human life, but every day you got better, starting out small with poultices that you had to injure yourself to try and ward spells that exhausted you but could make your home more secure than any in Vahmpyr (or on Earth).

At one point Chenle gifted you a book covered in old stains and strangely familiar drawings that you started to use before abruptly realizing that it was an old chemistry textbook. You invited him over that afternoon and whacked him over the head with the thick pages. He told you with a disgruntled look that he put a lot of effort into that, thank you very much. And besides, chemistry was a magic in itself. (His words, not yours.) After that you made sure to thoroughly inspect any gifts you received from the more mischievous family members.

Lucas came over and helped you set up more complicated equipment that you couldn’t lift, like a big cauldron, which you actually did use on the regular after you learned how to use it, and after some consideration you set up a chemistry station for the odd experiment. At this point your house was more magical items than actual living space, something that Kun was quick to point out when he came over.

“You know, you should really be more careful about having all of these powders and dusts and-” He cut himself off with a distasteful wrinkle of his nose. “Things.” He pursed his lips, looking at you. “We don’t really know what these things will do to you in the long run. You have to be careful.”

“Yeah, yeah,” you responded distractedly, making his coffee and a drink for yourself. “Maybe I’ll clean it all up sometime, but you know I’m awfully busy these days.” You used a spoon to stir in the milk and sugar, tapping the metal against the china in a soft clink.

He sighed tiredly. “Your health is less important than staying busy?”

You gave him a look that you hoped conveyed your need to stay busy, to continuously learn and improve. “Keeping my schedule full keeps me healthy, Kun. At least mentally.”

Kun didn’t look impressed by your reasoning. “I think your mental health will go down pretty quickly if you get sick and can’t do anything because you’re stuck in bed twenty-four-seven.”

You gave a sigh of your own at that. “And as always,” you announced to the room at large, “Doctor Kun gives amazing advice that I shouldn’t ignore but probably will.”

Y/n,” he said in a warning tone. “Seriously. You need to be careful! No human has ever lived here for so long, and I worry about you catching some mysterious illness that nobody has ever heard of!”

“Kun, I will do my best to keep myself healthy. I’ve put every kind of ward that I can around my house to protect me, I have magically circulated and cleaned air, I have literal superhumans to protect me from anything else, and I’m happy here! I finally have something to contribute. Maybe someday I’ll find some concoction or enchantment that will let me visit Earth, even. I just don’t know. But I’m going to keep trying.”

He took his coffee out of your grasp and walked back into the living room, which housed your indoor plants, magical and earthly. “That’s all I can ask,” he said, voice betraying his disappointment in that fact. “I’ll still give you monthly checkups for a while though, just to make sure.

“Can’t Jaemin take care of me?” you asked, thinking of Jaemin with his warm smile and caring words and the smell of sun on dirt and- well. Jaemin felt like safety in a person. Kun was wonderful, but Jaemin was just that little bit better, that little bit more comfortable to be around.

“He could,” Kun replied after taking a sip of coffee. “But I know he’s been busy lately though, he’s been on Earth for a few days checking on all of his businesses and stocks and his human personas. On the other hand, I hardly go back to Earth for more than a twelve hour shift here and there.”

“I understand.”

“Plus, I’m about two thousand years older than Jaemin, I have a lot of experience.”

“How old are you?” Two thousand years older than Jaemin would make Kun… pretty darn old.

Kun grinned. “I was around before and after Jesus came to Earth. I was around before the Terracotta Army was built. I was born in China circa when the Hanging Gardens of Babylon are said to have been built. Taeil-hyung turned me into a vampire when I was twenty five, and I’ve been twenty five ever since. None of us know when he was born. When you’re as old as he is, even with a vampire’s memory, history starts to blend together. He says he remembers the Pyramids at Giza going up, though, and that was after he had been a vampire for what he thinks was a few hundred years. He’s literally prehistoric.”

“Wow,” was all you could think to say. No wonder Taeil had so many artifacts. He was one. Kun was too, for that matter. And Jaemin… Jaemin would have been born AD, but how far into it? You asked Kun this question and he chuckled.

“Jaemin was born in fourteen forty two. He was twenty when Jeno turned him, and he’s still twenty, five hundred years later.”

“Who turned Taeil, then? I can hardly imagine a vampire older than him, even.”

“We’re not sure. Whoever it was is so unimaginably old now that even I can’t comprehend it. But whoever the original vampire was must have turned a whole lot of people. There are dozens more vampires just within our small community, and an entire plane full of them. From what I can tell, Taeil isn’t even the oldest. There’s this man who lives in the mountains by himself, and from what I hear, he hasn’t been seen by another vampire in nearly three thousand years. He’s almost a myth around here anymore. Taeil knew him back when Vahmpyr was sparsely populated, and he told us that the man - his name is Jinyoung Park - is older than him by so many years that he is to Taeil as Taeil is to me. He probably lived before Mesopotamia existed, even, or was right at the beginning of it. Before him, we have no idea who the first vampire was. If that vampire is still alive, he she or they hasn't been seen since, well, before living memory. If they still exist that would mean that vampires have been around since before modern humanity. I really wish we knew.”

“I wish you knew too,” you breathed. You had never really considered that immortality meant that the same vampires who existed before the Pyramids at Giza still lived among humanity today. It was mind boggling. The history in just their brains alone could fill thousands of textbooks and solve history’s greatest mysteries. But they couldn’t show themselves to the humans without risk. Even the people that they bit and sent back to Earth wouldn’t dare talk about their experiences, for fear of sounding crazy. Their gift to the world would never be wrapped up in gold tissue paper and presented with the proper awe, but here you were, in this modern metropolis of history. It truly hurt your brain to consider everything that came with that sort of age.

Just then a yell came from outside. “Kun-ge! Are you with Y/N?!” It sounded suspiciously like a panicked Yangyang. He never got panicked.

Kun stood up and hurried over to the front door, blurring in his hurry. “What happened?” he demanded.

“Well, uh, we may or may not have set Yuta’s house on fire…” Yangyang’s voice trailed off as Kun’s face reacted. First his eyebrows raised, then his mouth dropped open, and finally his eyes squeezed shut before reopening after a moment.

“You did what?”

Yangyang’s voice was small. “We set Yuta’s house on fire?” His voice was so high and squeaky that it sounded more like a question than a statement.

“Who is ‘we’?”

“Me, and Hyuck, and Taemin-hyung.”

“Oh my,” Kun said, running a hand over his face and through his hair. “I am going to murder Taemin-hyung.” He turned to Yangyang. “I might murder you and Donghyuck too.”

“We didn’t mean to,” Yangyang said. “It just happened.”

“You didn’t mean to set Yuta’s house on fire? How do you accidentally set someone’s house on fire?”

“You put on an impromptu fire show right next to the house, mess up a trick, and accidentally throw a flaming baton on their house. It was surprisingly easy. Anyway, I know that you would know what to do. You and Y/N both.”

Kun ran his hand through his hair again. You watched as a few light brown strands flew to the carpet with the force of it. “Y/N, do you have anything for flaming houses?”

You looked around your living room as though that would help you remember whether you did or not. “I think so, let me check my storage room,” you muttered, already dashing away. You did, in fact, have something that you loosely translated from the Egyptian spell scroll as “Fire Away Goop,” or something similar. It was a green, nearly transparent goop that sloshed in its bottle but it was too thick to really flow. It oozed more than anything. When it hit heat, it tended to solidify into a more solid green that would be easily removable from Yuta’s house, if said house was still there by the time you got to wherever it was. You grabbed the bottle and rushed back to the living room, panting. Kun turned to you.

“Is it okay if I carry you, to make sure we get there in time?”

“Won’t I be too heavy?”

He gave you an unimpressed look. “We’re literally the strongest things known to man. I’ll be fine.”

“Then sure. Let’s go save Yuta’s house!”

Kun carried you piggyback as fast as he could, your face tucked into his shoulder to avert most of the vertigo induced by such high speeds. Trees flashed by in browns and greens, and then you were going through the city, past the city, through more trees, in a rush that you couldn’t quite comprehend but which caused a sinking feeling to settle in your gut. Yuta’s house was far away. By the time you got there, the house was fully consumed by the flames, the fire burning merrily without knowledge that it was ruining a man’s home.

A man, presumably Yuta, stood out front, another man on his knees next to him. Once you were next to them, you realized that the standing man had the kneeling man’s ear in a tight grip. You figured that the man on his knees must have been the infamous Donghyuck.

“Yuta-hyung, Hyuck,” Kun greeted them as he set you on the ground.

“Yangyang,” said Yuta, turning around, “You’re a bit late.” He nodded at you and Kun in acknowledgement, as Donghyuck yelped at the tug on his ear. Yuta had black hair streaked through with neon green, and it framed a narrow face and startlingly pink lips. You wondered, in the back of your head, if he used lip tint. You also briefly entertained the idea that he contoured his face, because there was no way that he looked that good without makeup. He’s a vampire, your consciousness provided. All of them look that good.

“Sorry hyung,” Yangyang murmured. “We came as fast as we could!”

Kun stepped forward. “We brought Y/N, as you can see, and she has something to put the fire out.” Something like hope sparked in Yuta’s eyes as he looked over you again, taking in details of your appearance.

“Do you really? Well, go ahead.” He gestured to the house and the flames danced in your face, leaving you to hope that this gloop worked for fires this big. You took a deep breath and poured the goop onto the grass, where it oozed between the blades of grass like a big blob of snot on the lawn.

“Atlaq alnaar,” you murmured to it, and it rose into the air, following your mental directions toward the fire. The moment they made contact, the goop started to solidify and expand, covering the fire rapidly. Green overtook bright reds and oranges as you focused on the fire and made the goop cover it.

“Y/N!” Someone was calling to you, their voice out of focus as though you heard them from underwater. “You’ll get covered!” You were vaguely aware of a hand trying to lead you away, but the spell kept you rooted in place, your feet seemingly super glued to the lawn. You kept focus on the fire as the last flames were overtaken and put out. Yuta’s house was now a giant green blob. From what you could see through the jello-like goop, it had sustained a minimal amount of damage considering the amount of flames you had seen. You were so engrossed in the green substance that you missed the warning signs before it swallowed you up too, ever expanding.

It took your outstretched hands first, pulling you forward into it. Through your panic you had just enough brain power left to be amazed at how thick it was before your feet and legs were covered too, nearly encased in the goop. You leaned your head back as far as you could, trying to keep yourself in the open air, but the goop kept expanding. You felt more than saw the vampires try to dig you out, but while the spell still fueled it, the goop was surprisingly strong. A hand grasped your elbow as the goop grasped your neck and chin, keeping you completely still as it covered more of you. The hand let go. It couldn’t do anything now.

You took a deep breath just before the goop covered your mouth, nose, and eyes. You thought you felt something on the back of your neck but didn’t think much of it until it started burning. Any strength you had left crumbled as your eyes started stinging and your oxygen ran out. You couldn't see, but it felt as though the world was spinning around you, as though you had been disconnected from everything but the pain. Even through your lightheadedness the pain persisted. It had spread now, from your neck over your shoulders like the creeping vines on the back wall of Jaemin’s cottage.

Jaemin.

You realized through your hazy thoughts that you would never see him again. Your eyes and nose burned now, from tears you couldn’t cry and the pain slowly enveloping you.

You couldn’t hold on any longer.

Black.

☽༓☾

Across a forest and a small town, Jaemin was working on his Hindi pronunciation when Ten burst into his home for the second time in what seemed like a very short period. He wasn’t dripping this time, just looked thoroughly terrified of something.

“Jaemin! She needs help!”

“What? Who?” Jaemin stood up and walked over to his friend. Ten’s tentacles curled and uncurled repeatedly as he spoke.

“Y/N! The vision got sharper, which usually means it’s happening. The green blob wasn’t a tree, it was some sort of spell! She’s going to die if we don’t get there fast.”

“Where are we going?” Jaemin demanded as they ran through the trees around his cabin.

“Yuta’s house. Or, at least, where it used to be.”

“What happened to Yuta’s house?”

“Yangyang and Hyuck burned it down.”

“Ah.”

Ten was panting as he continued speaking. “I think that must be what the spell was for. Some sort of fire putter-outer.”

Jaemin tried to think back to all of the books he had given you, recalling a spell that sounded suspiciously like what Ten described. “If the one I think you’re talking about is the spell she used,” he told Ten, “we might not be able to save her by the time we get there.” A pang echoed through his chest. An empty feeling, as though your small human life had affected his own so strongly as to make him miss you without knowing that you were gone. Jaemin ran on, leaving Ten behind when he paused to rest, sprinting at his highest speed towards where you were.

When he arrived on Yuta’s plot, most of his vision turned green, not because things were actually green, but from the sheer size of the lime coloured stuff all over Yuta’s house. He had been correct when he guessed at which spell you had used. His gaze fell on Kun, Yangyang, Yuta, and Donghyuck, who stood at the still-expanding base of the blob, seemingly trying to get something out. He gasped. You were in the thing. He ran up and tried to help the others dig you out, to no avail. They couldn't do anything against the spell so long as you were alive, and he wasn’t about to kill the person he had worked so hard to protect. He tried to hold onto your elbow as it was swallowed, but was afraid of hurting you. They all watched as you took a deep breath and the gloop covered your face.

Jaemin slumped, out of ideas. There was no way to save you that he knew of. Then he thought back to Ten’s vision. He had to change you. It was the only way. You wouldn’t need to breathe, wouldn’t need to do anything. You could still be here with him. It was with that in mind that he lunged forward at the last moment and latched onto your neck, stretching his jar as wide as it would go. His fangs, already dripping uncomfortably with venom in your presence, sank into your veins, and he felt it as you stiffened slightly. You couldn’t move much in your current situation, but your muscles seized all the same. He stayed next to you as long as he could, until he was in danger of being swallowed into the goop as well. He licked the wounds closed as efficiently as possible and stepped back with the others to see what happened.

It was obvious that you had gone unconscious. The goop stopped moving so rapidly and seemed to pause in its conquest of the front yard. It started oozing slowly around again, creating something of a reverse muffin top as the top shell hardened and the bottom bits leaked out. They backed up to the edge of the yard and Jaemin used his (admittedly small) knowledge of spellcraft to create wards that would protect the house down the street and hopefully contain the goo. They watched in silence as the green kept expanding. Then Yangyang spoke.

“Will Y/N die?”

“I don’t think so,” said Jaemin slowly. “She shouldn’t, at any rate. I bit her.”

A collective tremor went around the group, as though none of them wanted to appear surprised but they all were.

“It was the only thing I could think of that gave Y/N a chance, so I had to try it,” Jaemin continued. “But Kun-hyung knows more than me on that subject.”

Kun looked pensive as he considered what Jaemin had said. “It should work, in theory. But between the wards always up around Y/N’s house, this spell, and the venom in his system, her body might now be able to take it. It’s just a game of chance, unless we can find some way to take some stress off of her body.”

They all looked to Jaemin again.

“Is there some way to break the wards that she has up?” Yuta asked.

“I don’t think so,” Jaemin said, frowning. “Not without taxing her further. We definitely can’t affect this spell without killing her, and as far as the transformation goes, we’d need to be able to get to her body in there. That’s obviously not happening either.”

“So what can we do?” Donghyuck’s voice was small and he sounded almost repentant, as though he thought this whole thing was his fault. It sort of was, but it was odd to hear that tone from him.

“We ask Ten what he can see of the future and go from there,” Jaemin said. “There’s not much else that we can do, unless anyone knows someone better with spells than Y/N.”

The whole group shook their heads. Spells could be cast by any human variant creature that they knew of, but spellcraft was a human specialty. You in particular were gifted beyond what they had seen in a very long while.

While they thought about it, Ten burst forth from the trees down the street and ran towards their group. He slowed down as he took in the blob, now pressing against the wards that contained it. Jaemin could feel a subtle sort of pressure in his head as his spells kept the goop within Yuta’s plot.

“So?” Ten asked Jaemin as he walked up. “Did it work?”

“We’re not sure. She’s not dead, or the Fire Away spell would have gone small and liquidy again. On the other hand, none of us know any way to get her out, and Kun-hyung’s worried about the toll that all of this” - he waved his hands at the blob - “will kill her while he turns. We wanted to ask what you were seeing as of now.”

Ten closed his eyes, most of his tentacles going still as he focused. There was one that whacked anxiously against the dirt beneath him, beating a steady rhythm against the earth. After a few minutes, his eyes opened and he refocused his eyes on the group around him.

“Well?” Yangyang prompted when he didn’t speak. Ten sighed.

“Good news is that she’s probably not going to die.”

“And the bad news?”

“She might die.”

“What do you mean, Ten-hyung?”

“I can’t… I can’t tell which future is the one that will come true. It’s like there are two possible ways for the future to go, and neither of them is solid. Either she makes it through, or she dies. The worst part is that I can’t tell what causes her death. It could happen two seconds from now, or two hours, or two days. I just don’t know.”

“I don’t remember your visions ever having two outcomes,” Kun said, brows furrowed.

“I haven’t ever had one like this.”

“Well,” Jaemin said, “I’ll just stay here until she wakes up.”

“And where should I go?” asked Yuta. “Maybe nobody told you, but this is my house that just got burned down.” He threw a glare at Hyuck and Yangyang.

“Go stay with Mark-hyung or something. You sleep over with him all the time anyway,” Donghyuck suggested, and Yuta grinned, a complete change from two seconds before.

“He’ll hate that. See you guys later!” He skipped a few steps before running full tilt, phone in his hands and fingers tapping. The glow of the screen disappeared quickly from Jaemin’s view, and he turned back to their now-smaller group.

“Are you sure that you want to stay here until Y/N wakes up?” Kun asked Jaemin. “I know that you don’t need sleep or anything, but that seems like a waste of time.”

“I have eternity,” Jaemin told him. “I just need to be here to watch it deflate, whether it’s because she’s turned or because…” His voice went weak. He couldn't see you die. He just couldn’t. Kun patted him on the shoulder.

“Okay. We’ll come check on you tomorrow.” As he walked away with Yangyang and Donghyuck, Jaemin heard Kun’s ‘mom voice’ come out as he lectured on the dangers of playing with fire. It made Jaemin smile a little.

His head was starting to feel uncomfortable with the pressure of his wards, so he carefully widened them, centimeter by centimeter, until there was less gloop on them. He couldn’t keep this up until you completed the transformation, he knew, but it would work for now. Maybe he could call Kibum-hyung tomorrow for help.

Until then all he had to do was sit and wait, and look at your form encased in neo pearl champagne colored jello.

☽༓☾

It was exactly twenty five hours, forty minutes, and nine seconds since Jaemin had first settled in when the goop started deflating. The hard casing that had developed collapsed in on itself when the slightly softer insides began to shrink, reminding Jaemin slightly of Honey Lemon and her chemical reactions in Big Hero 6. He sprang to his feet, rushing forward to where he could see the outline of your body inside the collapsing bubble, grabbing the empty decanter that the goop had once been held in. He scooped up the small oozing goop that remained from the spell and plugged the decanter, turning around slowly to look at your body once more.

As your still-limp body collapsed to the ground, Jaemin felt his unbeating heart sink. You didn’t move, there was no rise and fall to your chest. There was no sound of your breath in the air. Your eyes didn’t roll around under your eyelids. You seemed… corpselike. Dead. But it couldn’t be. Ten had said that you would probably survive! Jaemin opened his phone and pressed Ten’s contact to call it. He answered on the third ring.

“Jaemin? What’s up?”

“Ten-hyung,” Jaemin said, and his voice cracked. He cleared his throat before continuing. “Y/N… I think, is dead?”

Ten sucked in a breath, audible even through the phone. “Jaemin I’m so sorry-”

Jaemin cut him off. “Hyung, you said she would make it!”

“There was always that chance that she wouldn’t-”

“But you said-” Jaemin’s voice cracked again and he fell into silence. He couldn’t cry, and he had never wished he could until now. Tears might convey the hole in his chest, the emptiness of his existence without your life to partner him.

“Jaemin,” came Ten’s voice, and it was soft, delicate. “I’m so so sorry. I thought that she would make it, but there was always that second path. I can’t-” He took a deep breath. “I can’t see her anymore. I think… I think she might be gone.”

“No!” Jaemin exclaimed hotly. “She can’t be!”

“Jaemin-”

He hung up. Whatever Ten-hyung had to say wouldn’t help. It wouldn’t bring you back. He was along now, with your body and this stupid Flame Away Goop that had managed to take your life despite Ten’s prophecies and Jaemin’s best efforts. The person that you were was gone. Now you were just a still corpse, a painful reminder of what could have been and what should have been and what couldn’t be.

“I’ll give you a proper funeral,” Jaemin told your body as he lifted it into his arms gently. “I promise.”

For the next three days, Jaemin worked non-stop. He prepared a funeral for you, ignored everyone except to invite them to the event. He could still picture your smile, the way he had to support you those first few steps. He remembered how you had called him gorgeous, how you had said I love you in Gaelic to him without knowing what it meant. He recalled the trust you had for him despite his own occasional self-loathing, the way you had reminded him of his worth every time you were around him.

He missed you. He missed you a lot.

People had called him, came knocking once an hour. He eventually just shut off his phone so he didn’t have to hear their pleas for him to let them in. All of his hyungs and all of his noonas came to make sure he was okay, but would he ever be? There was a Y/N shaped hole in him that he didn’t think could ever be filled up again. Jeno came around three times a day with hug offerings, but Jaemin shut him out. He knew it hurt his friends, knew they only wanted to help, but you were gone and nobody understood. Nobody had loved you the way he had. Nobody had your blood quite literally on their hands, flowing through their veins.

It hurt to think about that. He “lived” while you were dead; he had gained life through your death and that was the most ironic thing. In his attempt to save you, he may have killed you.

He hurt.

On the fourth day since your death, Jaemin gently dressed your body in the best clothes he could find, brushed your hair, and put you in a casket, standing you in an open clearing, the one where he had tried to send you back to Earth. It was the largest clearing nearby, and all of the vampires that had met you plus Ten came to pay their respects. They spoke about the short time they had known you, and the strong impact you had made despite that. They told of how you had gone back to Earth and suffered until you had returned. They told of your feats practicing witchcraft and most of all they spoke of your kindness, the lack of repulsion towards them. They spoke of your kind smile and the way you had fit in so nicely with their community.

Jaemin started not-crying, as vampires did, and he thought he would be alone, but Jeno joined him. Lucas joined him. Jisung and Chenle joined him. Ten and Johnny joined him. He was not the only one who had loved you. Donghyuck joined him. Yangyang and Yuta and Kun joined him. He was not the only one who felt that your death was his fault.

Jaemin was not the only person who choked out their words in an imitation of crying. Jaemin was not the only person who missed you. Jaemin was not the only one who wanted you back. Jaemin was not the only one.

He hadn’t realized how much he missed his friends until they surrounded him in a huge hug. It wasn’t a warm hug, necessarily, but it was a hug nonetheless and made him feel better. He was not the only one.

He was still dealing with the hole in his chest, but he had others to patch himself up with now. Like each person who had known you could bring a part of you back through their memories of you. It was nice, almost.

☽༓☾

The first thing you realized was that you could hear again. Your ears were uncovered, and you vaguely registered words being choked out somewhere near you. It sounded like a large number of people were very sad about something. You wondered what it could be. The second thing you realized was that you were laying down on some sort of padded… thing. It felt like too much work to open your eyes, so you felt around and realized that you were in a padded box. A padded box? That was new.

You tried to sniff the air and were met with the smell of cologne, not too strong but apparently on enough people that it permeated the air. You got hints of perfume too, but it was far less strong. Something in the box shifted and you felt breaths on your face. Were people looking at you in your sleep? Come to think of it, why were these many people around you while you slept at all? That seemed sort of rude. You tried to remember getting here but came up blank. Your last memories were of the pain before you passed out. You shivered at the memory.

“She’s awake!” someone shouted. The noise hurt your ears after the deafening silence of your previous state, and you itched to get away from them. A murmur of sound rolled through the room and then a familiar scent invaded your senses, that of sun-warmed earth.

“Y- Y/N?” Jaemin asked hesitantly. “Can you hear me? Are you in there?”

He sounded absolutely wrecked, like his voice had been stripped of his usual honey and sunshine. You tried to open your eyes, but it was too bright and you just couldn’t, so you nodded slightly.

“Oh my- Y/N,” he continued. “Can’t you open your eyes for me, please?”

You shook your head no.

“Okay, that’s fine, sweetheart. Let me get you out of there.” There was the sound of something wooden being bonked against a wall, but that faded in comparison to the name. Sweetheart. Sweetheart.

You were lifted gently from your padded box and carried somewhere shady and cold. It felt nice against your skin. He felt nice against your skin. He carried you gently, like you were made of glass, but you felt surprisingly strong, just out of sorts. As though while your mind struggled to catch up, your body had strengthened. It was a very different sensation to that of your first time waking up in Jaemin’s house. He walked you through what you thought must be the forest for a bit before he sat down and nestled you into his side. You felt as though some muscles should be unhappy about the position, but you felt completely comfortable.

“Y/N.” Jaemin’s voice came to you, soft and warm and familiar. It was shaking slightly. “Can you open your eyes for me now?”

You focused on your eyelids, raising them slowly until you could see Jaemin. He had on a suit; black jacket over a white shirt, accented by a thin black ribbon tied loosely around his neck. His pink hair fell neatly in waves over his forehead and you reached up to brush away a piece that had fallen over his eyes, smiling.

“Hey Jaem. What happened?” Your voice wasn’t weak, like you supposed it should have been. It came out like a melody into the air, and you marvelled internally at the sound of it, how smooth it was. It felt nice.

“You-” Jaemin broke off for a second, rearranging your limbs next to him. “You were trying to save Yuta’s house. We had to rebuild part, but it’s fine. He stayed with Mark for a few days. For the most part, your spell worked. But then, it- it swallowed you. I got there in time to watch as you were absorbed by this green goop and I thought I was too late. I bit you, back here.” He brushed his fingers gently over the sides of your neck and you shivered. “But you didn’t wake up… I thought I was too late. You weren’t breathing, and you weren’t awake… I have no idea how you managed to cancel the spell without waking up or dying. So I-” He made a choked up sound and tightened his arm around your shoulders. “We’re at your funeral. Ten couldn’t see your future anymore, so we thought you were dead…” He trailed off.

“Wow,” you said. “I died? Then how am I here now? I feel alive?”

“It worked. It must have. You don’t have a heartbeat, but you’re awake. I don’t know what happened exactly, but you must be a vampire now.”

“Huh. I thought I’d feel more… hungry.”

He laughed. It glittered over your ears and you smiled, an involuntary reaction to him. “It’ll kick in, don’t worry.”

“What about the others? I mean, Lucas and Kun and everyone? Are they just at my funeral right now? Without me?”

“Oh.” Jaemin looked as though he had forgotten about them. “I guess they are. Let’s go see them?”

“Let’s.”

☽༓☾

After that day, it didn’t take you long to realize that the other vampires were purposefully putting you with Jaemin for just about everything. On days where you went to hang out with Lucas, he would ask you how Jaemin was doing. If you didn’t know, he would suggest that you go and visit him. Kun asked you to make sure that Jaemin was feeling okay. Yuta, who you were finally allowed to meet and hang out with, constantly suggested that you should spend more time with him. It was strange. Nobody had seemed to mind that you had your own hobbies before your transformation, but now that you were a vampire, it was as though you were meant to be with Jaemin all of the time. You asked Lucas about it once you got sick of the mysterious treatment and he looked at you heavily.

“When you got trapped in that goopy stuff, Jaemin went all weird. He didn’t move for, like, more than 24 hours, and once he thought you were dead… he didn’t talk to any of us until the funeral. We worry about him, and you seem to make him really happy, so we’re trying to keep you two around each other.”

You didn’t really know what to say to that, so you chose the very eloquent “oh,” as your response. Lucas chuckled.

“I know. It was really weird, I’ve never seen him like that. I think we’ve seen a lot of new sides of Jaemin since you came along.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“It’s… well, I don’t think it’s bad or good. It just is. You affect him differently than anyone else we know.”

“Why is that, do you think?”

“Y/N, you idiot, he’s in love with you.”

“He’s what?”

Lucas sighed. “He’s in love with you.”

“Why do you think that? This is Jaemin we’re talking about here. Jaemin. He’s, like, beauty incarnate and he’s smart and kind and wonderful in every aspect of everything. He just can’t be in love with me.”

“He’s in love with you.”

“He’s not.”

“He is.”

“He can't be.”

“Why not?”

“I just told you why.”

Lucas sighed again, more deeply. “But you’re in love with him.”

“I-” You consider that. “I guess?”

“That wasn’t a question.” He rolled his eyes.

“Do you think it’s possible that he actually does like me back?”

“Yes.”

Somehow, after that, Lucas managed to steer the conversation onto other subjects and you refocused on those things, but it echoed in your head. He’s in love with you.

☽༓☾

Even with this new information bouncing around the forefront of your brain, you still had to go and spend time with Jaemin. Maybe it was a little strange for your thoughts to short circuit when you saw him, the little whisper of what if in your head. Maybe it was a little peculiar for a vampire such as yourself to stutter through sentences because you were busy thinking about what life would be like if he really did like you back. Maybe you spent less time talking on your walks together because you wanted to lay next to him in a clearing and watch the clouds instead. Just maybe.

If Jaemin noticed any of your strange behaviour, he didn’t call you out on it. He either really wasn’t paying all that much attention, or he knew enough about you to know that you wouldn’t want him to pry. It was strange, really, how well you knew each other in such a short time. You supposed that since you spent so much time together it wasn’t improbable, but he knew you nearly as well as your old human friends back home.

Thinking about your old memories was a strange experience. You could remember everything as clearly as your human self could, but you noticed more the lack of detail within the images, the way your human eyes couldn’t move as fast as your vampire ones, and your reflexes weren’t as fast, and the way you fixated on one part of the picture without taking in the details of the rest of your vision. You had entirely blocked out memories of driving, they were too harrowing. You recalled more easily now all of the times you had nearly hit something or someone, and while you couldn't die now, at least not that easily, you could have easily fallen prey to the fatal blind spot more times than you’d care to admit.

When you told Jaemin about that, he laughed that laugh you loved so much. “I was born in fourteen forty-two, Y/N. We didn’t have cars back then. The only thing on the street that would run me over was a horse-drawn carriage.”

“Well,” you retorted, “you should consider yourself lucky then. Carriages and horses don’t sound half so bad as giant hunks of metal flying at each other at eighty miles per hour.”

“Maybe you’re right,” he mused, stroking an imaginary beard. “Maybe I was lucky to be born in Korea during the 1400s. You may have heard of the emperor Sejong the Great? I was born during his rule. He was one of the best emperors Korea ever had, he introduced hangul and united the country under Confucian principles so that there was more love for the country and the people living in it. Peaceful few years we had there, from what little I remember. After that, though? Lots of killing, children on the throne, et cetera et cetera. Not so fun. And I was actually able to die through all of that, so that wasn’t pleasant. But then King Sejo, the one who did the killing, actually did a pretty okay job of ruling the country and we had a few more years of prosperity. He died six years after my transformation. I missed that event because I was here in Vahmpyr getting to know Jeno, who turned me.”

“How much of the group was around, at that point?”

“Well…” Jaemin closed his eyes briefly in thought. “Here, let me draw you a family tree.” He grabbed a piece of paper and a pencil and wrote ‘Moon Taeil’ at the top. “Okay so as you know, Taeil is here as the first of us. He turned Yuta-hyung, Kun-hyung, Johnny-hyung, and Taeyong-hyung.” He wrote in their names under Taeil’s, spacing them out across the paper.

“Yuta-hyung turned Sicheng-hyung and Shotaro; Kun-hyung turned Dejun-hyung and Lucas-hyung; Johnny-hyung turned Jungwoo-hyung and Mark, and Taeyongie-hyung turned Hyuck, Doyoung-hyung, and Jaehyun hyung.” He labeled all of these names, then drew more stems leading from Jaehyun, Lucas, and Dejun.

“Jaehyun-hyung turned Sungchan, Lucas-hyung turned Hendery-hyung and Yangyang, and Dejun-hyung turned Renjun.” He drew all of these connections and stemmed Renjun’s name down even farther.

“Renjun turned Jeno and Chenle, then Jeno turned me, and I turned Jisung and now you.” He finished the tree with a flourish, black ink stark against the creamy paper. They were all connected, in some way, to Taeil’s venom. And there was you, at the very bottom, your name small next to Jisung’s.

“You guys are all so… connected.”

“Yep! We’re all one big family.”

“Do you guys have, like, family reunions? And who changed Joy and her friends? Or what’s-his-face? Taemin?”

“We don’t really all get together a lot, just because most of us have jobs on Earth or spend our days doing stuff on our own. Some of them like having flings all the time. Obviously none of us can get STDs or get pregnant, so they can do that, no strings attached. We sort of hang out in our individual groups for the most part, and then hang out every once in a while. As far as the others, we think that they must have come from the same person as Taeil-hyung, a very very old vampire. There are other stories like ours across Vahmpyr, where one vampire created one member of each coven and let us grow from there. The difference is that some of them actually have good relationships with those older vampires, whereas I’ve never met ours. I’ve heard that there’s a man called Park Jae-sang who actually comes around to spend time with the vampires he’s changed. The closest we have to an old vampire is Leeteuk-hyung, and he isn’t really around much, plus he’s not that much older than Taeil-hyung.

“Anyway, to answer your question, when I was turned, nearly everyone was around already. Only Yangyang, Sungchan, Shotaro, Chenle, and Jisung are younger than me. And now you.”

“Wow, so you had to meet everyone right after your transformation? I bet that was chaotic.”

“It was, but it was also fun. I got to be the baby for a while. Then the others came around and I somehow became a mother figure.”

You laughed. Jaemin was a mother figure, for sure. He liked to take care of the people around him, including humans that his brothers had brought home for him to patch up. “That doesn’t surprise me one bit.”

He giggled along with you, that laugh you adored so much, and grinned. “I guess it sort of fits me, doesn’t it? Mother Jaem.” He rolled the name over his tongue and you collapsed into laughter again. “I think that works well, yep.”

The next few days, you called him Mother Jaem, and everyone gave you weird looks, but it made Jaemin laugh hard enough that it was worth it.

☽༓☾

One day after this, Chenle pulled Jaemin aside to ask him what on Earth was going on with this whole “Mother Jaem” thing. Jaemin explained happily how it had come about. Chenle rolled his eyes dramatically.

“When are you two getting married?”

Jaemin just gave him a blank stare. “What?”

“It’s so disgusting how much you guys love each other! When can we shove you two together in a house and call it a day?”

“Um, okay, first of all, that is not how you get rid of somebody. Second, she doesn't love me? And third, there is definitely not enough space in her house for me, even if she did.”

Chenle pinched the bridge of his nose. “Lucas was right, you guys are blind fools. Of course she loves you! She goes to see you all the time! And enjoys it! You’re both in love with each other and both of you are cowards.” He ran his hand through his hair, knocking a piece into his eye. He squinted unhappily but didn’t try to move it.

Jaemin sighed as he got the chunk of hair away from Chenle’s eye. “This is Y/N we’re talking about though! She might hate me for everything I put her through and only stick around because I turned her or something. Plus, she spends as much time with Lucas as with me.”

“My God, your logic is terrible. You love her, she loves you, you need to get together. Watch some dramas and kiss her in the rain or something. Lucas even told me that she loves you!”

“That’s astonishingly specific for someone who doesn’t have a romance under their belt.”

“That’s besides the point!” Chenle grabbed the sides of Jaemin’s face and held him still while he spoke. “You need to confess sometime or another before the rest of us go crazy watching you run in circles around each other.”

With that he stalked away, leaving Jaemin rubbing his face where Chenle’s fingertips had pressed into the skin. It didn’t hurt, but the echoes of his voice and his fingers held Jaemin still for a long time afterwards.

☽༓☾

The next week, Kun and Taeil invited the whole coven to a reunion at Kun’s country estate. Having never been, you looked forward to seeing the giant house as much as meeting the rest of the family. It didn’t disappoint, it was absolutely massive, at least four or five floors and extensive gardens in front. Kun gave you free run of the place, asking you to please not enter rooms marked with a “Do Not Enter” sign. Simple rule to follow. You entered the main hall first, feeling like royalty in such an elegant room. Twin staircases led from the upstairs, leading your eyes to an extravagant chandelier covered in hundreds of crystals, and a mint green ceiling. From either side of the large room extended hallways with lush pale blue rugs and endless vases on platforms. It felt as though you had entered the past, or maybe a very expensive movie set. You moved through hallways and rooms, gazing at velvet chairs and old paintings that screamed money. You wondered if someone in Vahmpyr painted them, or if they were from Earth. You found only two rooms marked “Do Not Enter,” one of which was in a long hallway of bedrooms, so you assumed it was Kun’s.

The other was in the back of a positively colossal library. The library caught your eye because of the sheer size of it. Rows upon rows of books lined the walls and seemingly endless freestanding shelves. It was as large as the main public library back home, taking up at least four average rooms worth of space per floor. Not to mention the height. You estimated that it was at least three floors high, perhaps four. An entire long wall was devoted to Kun’s studies in medicine, dating back to leeches and poultices on open wounds through Magnetic Resonance Imaging and the most advanced of current surgeries. He had records of patients stacked by century, and a desk that popped out of the wall to reveal his own notes on developing vaccines and other medicines. Had you still been human, you were certain that a room like this would have given you a headache, from the size and the amount of books to look at.

From the medicine section you moved to other sciences like forensics, geology (although that section was considerably smaller), and astronomy. You also discovered an entire section on aviation. In the astronomy section, you found cork boards with maps pinned to them, stars drawn in detail, space stations built for both humans and vampires, and more drawings you didn't know how to interpret. You pulled out a few books at random and flipped through them, smiling at the notes in the margins. Past those sections were books on every type of science you had ever heard of, and some you hadn’t.

Beyond those were histories, and Kun’s travel section. He had bins filled with brochures, maps, and travel magazines and accounts of, from what you could tell, every war known to have occurred past Kun’s turning. That blended into social studies, and you found books on language next to copies of the Bible in seemingly every version, translations of the Quran, and more religious texts. Stock market trends were recorded and stored next to books on how to hire smart and anthropology. Cultural studies were stored with ethics and political records. Newspapers appeared as well, although those were fewer than the books by far. They appeared to be from a singular area, a place called Taining County, in China. Kun must have some sort of tie to it. You made a mental note to ask him when you rejoined the others.

You climbed a staircase to the second floor, where you found a fireplace and sitting area within the books. It appeared that the entire second floor was books organized by language, starting each section with children’s books and working their way up to novels. You found all of the Romance Languages, German, Hindi, Greek, Tagalog, Russian, Dutch, Japanese, Cantonese, Thai, Korean, Arabic, Bengali, Telugu, Tamil, Urdu, Latin and more that you didn’t know. In the back was a small compilation of different countries’ sign languages, as well.

You climbed the next flight of stairs to the third floor, finding the fiction section. These were organized by genre, with horror on one shelf, science fiction hogging four shelves on the opposite walls, romance taking up a large section next to that, et cetera. You spotted a section marked “Transcribed” and walked over to it, finding books handwritten by Kun, presumably taken from other forms and written over to fit in his library. You imagined the wax tablets and stone slabs of old books and shuddered. Even as a vampire, transporting those wouldn’t be easy. This floor was open in the middle, looking down at the second. Above you, the next floor was open as well and housed more shelves.

You walked up the last staircase and came upon a musical archive. There were phonographs on tables next to more recent record turntables, followed by cassette players and CD players. Each one was in impeccable condition, and behind them were shelves of every format that would work with those machines. These were shorter shelves, since the music was thinner than books, but there were still many many of them. You saw cassette boxes labeled with the albums contained within, records in yellowed sleeves, and CDs in thick storage cases. They were organized by decade, with the earliest dating back to the late nineteenth century. You guessed that was when recorded music had been invented. Perhaps Kun could still remember older pieces though; something else you would have to ask him about. You were looking through the most recent music to see what he liked and if you had heard of it when you heard someone calling your name.

“Y/N? Where are you?”

“In the library, fourth floor!” you yelled back.

“Will you come back to the kitchen and help me with this?”

“Sure!”

You weren’t sure who was calling you, but it sounded like Lucas, so you ran towards the kitchen. You weren’t sure entirely why there was a kitchen, since you all drank blood anyway, but you figured there was a good reason. You added that to your growing list of things to ask Kun. You understood why you had a kitchen in your house since you had lived in it while you were still human, but Kun hadn’t been to Vahmpyr before he was turned as far as you knew. Besides, he usually lived in his apartment next to the other guys. Maybe it was just necessary to have a kitchen in a house, you didn’t know. It would have felt weird, you guessed, to live in a house without one.

When you arrived, Lucas was outside as you had guessed.

“Will you run in and grab these things for me?” he asked, handing you a sticky note. “I’ve been tasked with rounding up everyone else.”

“Yeah, no problem,” you replied, walking through the doors into the room. It was industrial, like Kun cooked for dozens of people at a time, and there was a surprising amount of cooking utensils that wouldn’t work on raw bodies, like spatulas. You looked down at the sticky note for the first time. If you don’t confess, it read, I will smack you when you come back out. And you know how big my hands are, I will make it hurt.

“What?” you murmured to yourself as Jaemin walked into the room.

“Oh hey Y/N, did Chenle send you?”

“No, Lucas did. But did Chenle perhaps give you a sticky note with things to get for him on it?”

Jaemin glanced down at a hot pink slip of paper in his hand. “Yeah.” He looked back up at you before his brow furrowed and he looked more thoroughly at the writing on it. He groaned. “I am going to kill Chenle.” He ran a hand through his cotton candy pink hair. “I guess I should just get it over with then.”

He walked closer to you, setting the sticky note on the counter as he came. “I’m kind of in love with you? And I have been for a while? I mean I get if you hate me after everything I put you through, but according to Chenle you like me back? And… yeah?”

You were left speechless. Hate Jaemin? Never. And he… loved… you?

“Y/N? Are you okay?” Jaemin waved a hand in front of your face. “I’m sorry, I’ll go, Chenle must have set up a prank.” He started walking away and you grabbed his wrist.

“Jaem, hold on. I’m just in shock. I thought there was no way you could like me back…” Your voice got steadily smaller until it trailed off at the end of your sentence as a whisper.

His entire face lit up like a Christmas tree plugged in for the first time, glowing and cheerful. “It’s not a prank?”

You rubbed a hand over your face. “No, it’s not a prank. I thought Lucas was kidding when he said you liked me back. Or at least that he was wrong. You- you’re actually telling me that you’re in love with me?”

“I am.”

“Holy shit.”

He laughed, a ringing sound in the quiet of the kitchen. It echoed back at you as though the happiness of the laugh had been multiplied. “They’re going to be so smug,” he muttered.

“Oh yes they are. We’re going to have to get back at them someday.”

“Well, we have forever,” he reminded you. You grinned and held out your hand. He took it.

“Let’s go get the teasing over with then.”

You walked out of the kitchen and down the hall. “What did Chenle threaten you with if you didn’t confess?” you asked.

“Oh, he was going to tell the group about the fling I had with Jeno when we were younger.”

You looked at him in shock. “You had a fling with Jeno? Why would you choose me over him?”

“It was just sexual attraction. While that works for some people, both of us were happier just being friends, so we ended it. I actually am in love with you, which makes all the difference. Anyway, Chenle got that story out of me on a dare once and has held it over my head ever since.”

“I wonder if he’s told Jeno he knows?”

“Probably.”

You had reached the front room, and you took a deep breath as you walked forward, though it did nothing for your undead body. “Let’s throw ourselves to the wolves.”

As you walked out into the sunlight, a cheer rose up that would have sent birds flapping away, had there been any. You heard Chenle’s unique laugh paired with Lucas’ happy shouts of “yes!” and the voices of the other men you had gotten to know, paired with ones you didn’t. They stood in a group in the garden, whooping and throwing up hats if they had any. Lucas was the first to reach you.

“I can’t believe you actually did it! I thought I’d have to smack you!” He sounded far too happy at the prospect for your liking.

The rest of the boys ran over. There was a repeating round of “finally” until someone mentioned the food getting warm and there was a great rush to get back to the patio in the garden. You sat next to Jaemin in patio chairs as the sun slowly sank past the tree line and talked with friends old and new.

There was something new, something warm inside of you. A feeling of belonging more than ever when Jaemin fed you a little and the rest of the guys booed jokingly. Under the rising stars you kissed him for the first time, a quick peck at the behest of Yangyang. There were more cheers and hugs and someone had a polaroid camera out, the flash lighting up the scene as everyone laughed.

This was where you were meant to be.

End.

!!reblogs and feedback are much appreciated!!

221 notes · View notes

palbabor-writes · 4 years ago

Text

Latibule

Pairing: Sakusa Kiyoomi x Fem!Reader

Warnings: mentions of anxiety, panic attacks & hypochondria, adult language, eventual SMUT

Words: 9790

His usual spot at the cafe is taken, and he’s already decided to keep walking on, but somehow, somehow, he manages to catch your eye.

His feet are slowing, a stuttering breath stagnating in his lungs, all at once hopeful and bewildered, but before he can examine his fluttering emotions, you’re alongside him on the noisy sidewalk, passing him his usual evening drink, a pleased smile on your soft lips.

Suddenly, the world smells like velvety pine and heady bergamot, and he can’t stop staring down at you.

Notes: hi. this is my first real foray into the world of Haikyuu!! & i’m so excited to branch into this fandom! if this is your first time reading my stuff imma warn you, i take things slow, so expect some slow burn.

this will be a multi-chapter fic with eventual NSFW/18+ only content. i will post warnings for each update. i’ll also link other chapters on this page and any other pages that come up, so keep in mind that there will be edits to links as things progress - i wasn’t planning on this being anything more than a one-shot, but this first exploration of Sakusa’s character turned into a monster & i wanna really hone in on that sweet, sweet build up.

big, huge shoutout to @wickedfaerytale & @albinoburrito for their edits and suggestions. y’all are amazing and i love you both so much, this fic wouldn’t be what it is without the two of you.

Latibule /lat-i-bule/ noun a hiding place; a place of safety and comfort

pt. i: an opening

[ pt. ii: four set ] ||

It’s a quiet coffee shop.

He likes that about it. He likes it almost as much as the simple fact that he can tell what day of the week it is by the smell of the disinfectant and bleach that’s being used behind the counter.

There’s a strange comfort to this place’s consistency and Kiyoomi Sakusa likes to linger here, propping his MSBY issued volleyball bag beside his usual table. He’s already placed his coffee order with the cheerful man who guards the cash register, watching as his paper cup is marked with a fresh sharpie and placed on the bartop, beside the elbow of that barista who always attentively turns to wash her hands before making each new order.

He had stumbled upon the shop his senior year of college and he’s haunted it ever since, content to sip on a smooth cortado as he watches over the latest plays from the MSBY games, mapping out his overestimations, his successes, and his flukes in his notebook– carefully lined kanji listing out what worked and what needs some extra practice. The caramel sweet flavor of the ristretto shots always helps to relax him, his broad shoulders lowering, the ache of self-induced tension and overworked muscles easing as his drink cools between his fingers, finally sinking fully into the plush leather seat of his clean chair.

The young woman, he should know your name, but he’s never caught a proper glimpse of your name tag, because you’re always moving, gives him a familiar lifting of smooth lips and places his completed drink on the handoff plane. You know his personal preferences well enough that you’re already moving the caddy of lids and cardboard sleeves forward, so he can select his own from the neatly stacked row. He gives you a cursory nod and his calloused fingertips pull the frothy beverage into his hands, cupping the curved sides and taking a deep drag of air through his masked nose, inhaling the bright smell of fresh coffee.

And…vines…or is it a tangy pine?

There’s something else that’s tickling his senses, and he blinks toward you, dark brows knitting together, a misplaced curl of inky hair brushing against his forehead, trying to make sense of the smell. His chin lifts and his head tilts, eyes watching your polished movements as you move onto the next drink in line. It’s definitely got some floral notes, but it’s not cloyingly sweet, like honeysuckle or gooseberry–no, it’s got some kind of balmy spice to it. It returns when you move closer and he swears he can taste summer when you shift back.

Odd.

When you look up at him again, he’s already stepping away, his running shoes squeaking across the slate tiles, making his way back to his bag and table. The aroma of your perfume is half forgotten when he cracks his laptop open, squirting some hand sanitizer across his chapped palms before he starts to clack his fingertips across the dark keys. He needs to get more lotion; he thinks as the sterile solution cools between his splayed fingers, this weather always dries his skin out.

The next time he comes in he spies you at the back of the shop, jotting something down in a large binder before kneeling behind the counter, returning with a sparkling, grated drain top. The white gleams under the accented lighting and he watches as you thumb at the paint, denoting a splotch of rust that rests under the dip of the metal. You return the cover to the ground and immediately twist to the hand washing sink that rests behind the bar, lathering up some dispensed soap and methodically stroking from the tips of your fingers to your wrists. A steady puff of steam is rising around you as he places his order–

[ a oat milk smoothie, with an extra scoop of protein powder, chia seeds, turmeric, kale, cucumber, dash of dates for sweetener ]

and by the time he’s paid and padding toward his usual spot, you’re finishing up, yanking a few disposable paper towels from the overhead dispenser and gingerly drying your damp hands.

He’s seen you wash your hands plenty of times before, but he finds himself distractedly following your movements this afternoon as he waits for his order and his computer to finish booting up. You catch his obsidian eyes when you turn around and give him a brief smile; a flash of teeth peeking through your lips before you move back to your binder. You jot down a few more notes as you move onto the fridges that sit under the countertops, pulling and prying at the gaskets that line the doors of the whirring chillers, speaking softly to a fellow employee, pointing out the missed stains and chipped flecks of ice that like to hide within the folds of the protective plastic.

You’re not overbearing in your coaching, keeping your tone even and friendly, focusing on what can be done going forward, rather than lingering on the ‘what if’s’ and ‘why wasn’t’ of the situation.

Practical, efficient, thorough with your work, and careful with your craft.

Those descriptors float to the forefront of his mind as he takes his smoothie from the barista that’s standing beside you. He lets his gaze hold against your half leaning form, watching the lead tip of your pencil mark over the stark red checklist that you’re working your way down.

He’s not sure why he’s so focused on you. He’s never thought much about you. You’ve been someone that exists in the background, part of his routine to be sure, but he justifies that your attention to detail is likely the reason why he prefers this shop to the dozens of other coffee houses that litter the main street by the MSBY training facilities and stadium. Your head shifts, and he can tell you can feel his gaze, so he swiftly plucks up his icy cold cup, his nose involuntarily trying to seek out that perfume you’d been wearing the other day.

Strange. His brow furrows, and he hunches into his sports jacket, walking back to his chair and his glowing computer. He can’t smell it today. Maybe you’re too far away, or perhaps you’d forgotten to put it on before coming in.

Pity. He’d liked it.

“Running a little late today, I see,” your voice snaps him out of his stupor, onyx eyes lifting to rest against your open expression.

“Kind of,” he replies blandly, his deep cadence muffled by the pull of his mask.

“Damn, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you be late! Want me to push your drink to the front of the queue? I’ve got the power to do that, you know,” you tease, tilting your head as a mischievous grin settles over your quirked lips. Kiyoomi blinks impassively down at you and shakes his head. How would he even reply to something like that? You were joking, right? You must be. And if you weren’t, the people who are clustered around the handoff plane would certainly realize that he was being given his drink first, clearly ahead of all of theirs, and they’d probably toss him a few disgruntled stares or mouthy jabs, and likely accuse you of playing favorites.

Wait. Favorites?

Does he count as a ‘favorite’ here? He looks away, lips drooping into a pursed line. You’ve always been…nice…but there’s no way he’s a favorite of yours. He’s hardly spoken to you in the year and a half that he’s been coming here. But is that all it takes? Just take up space in the cafe a few times a week and get special treatment?

No. You must be joking.

All the same, your jovial tone and that welcoming smile is a little intriguing.

He shuffles closer to the heat of the espresso machines, easily lifting his head over the lip of the bronze metal, watching you. You’re looking down now, fingers gripping the dark handle of the portafilter, holding it under the buzzing grinder to gather a fine sprinkle of dusky espresso grounds into the waiting basket. Then, you lift a lustery tamp to the heaping mound and press expertly against the delicate remains of the arabica, packing them to an even level before clamping the filter under the display of the machine. When you flick the switch that activates the group head you must sense his stare and lift your eyes to his, eyelashes momentarily fluttering against your cheeks when you spy his unabashed observations of you.

For a second, your hands falter, trapped within the unexpected intensity of his curious gaze, and you pat blindly for the cup that’s sitting to the right of your curled arms, embarrassingly disarmed by his transparent focus. But once your grip wraps around the waiting plastic, it seems to ground you and you let out a huffing chuckle, eyes crinkling up at his half obscured face.

“I’m only kidding about moving your drink up, don’t worry, I won’t get you in trouble. Besides, it’s against our policy. First come, first serve and whatnot,” you assure him, halting the stream of water that’s pouring the carefully timed flow of espresso into the clear shot glass that’s waiting against the gleaming metal of the drip tray.

“You’re busy today,” he notes, jerking his curly head toward the gaggle of college students sprawled across some of the bigger tables, their laughing voices and overly loud conversations easily drowning out the hum of lofi jazz that’s playing from the recessed speakers.

“Ah, yeah, finals are coming up for a lot of us that go to the university. I know my classes are starting to gear up for that last push and sometimes you just need a pick me up and coffee is great for that. We also get a big boost from the smoothies and frappes that we sell in the afternoons, so we get a little packed. Most of our sales happen during the weeks leading up to finals and midterms, uh, anyways, not that you asked for an economic lesson on a small cafe’s profit margins.”

“You’re a student?” he asks, head dipping back, eyes glittering in the lights. Wait. How old are you? Not that he can boast any sort of seniority on that front, he’s only 24 after all, but you just seemed, hmm, more mature? He didn’t picture you as a co-ed. Not that he’s actively picturing you when he’s not here. Well, he is a little recently, but you’ve always felt sort of timeless? Ageless? Is that the right term? You give off an air of confidence. So he’d assumed that you were older than him. Not in a bad way, in fact he’d sort of like it if you were. Why, that is, he’s not willing to look too deeply into, at least, not right now. Maybe later, when he gets back home and can…oh, you’re talking again.

“I’m a graduate student, but not for much longer. I’m finishing up my dissertation this week! Thank God. This semester has been the pits, I’m so ready for a break!” You sound genuinely happy and he can smell that faint aroma of your perfume each time you move.

“Congratulations,” he murmurs, unsure if you’d heard him since you’re stepping away from the machines that he’s posted himself behind. He watches you set up two steaming drinks, topping them with a lazy swirl of silky, housemade, whipped cream, a crosshatch drizzle of caramel, carefully snapping a set of black plastic lids on top, before calling out the handwritten names and handing them off to their respective owners. Then you’re back, hands already unhooking the portafilter, knocking out the used espresso pucks into the trash and bringing him back to that spicy smell of summer that sits on your skin.

“Haha, it’s a little early for a congratulations. Don’t jinx me, will’ya? But seriously, thanks, that’s nice of you to say,” you continue, flowing easily back into this half-hearted conversation he’s accidentally struck up with you. He winces at that thought and dips his hands deeper into his jacket, hunching his shoulders into a habitual slouch that he instinctively imposes upon himself when he’s out in public.

“You want a lid?” you question over the hiss of the machine, and he lifts his head, finding your bright eyes through the misting remains of the cleared steam wands.

“No.” His response is clipped, and he gulps down a sudden burst of hazy anxiousness when someone brushes past him, jostling him closer to the low wall that divides the bartop from the cafe floor. He braces himself against the warming top of the machine, his large palm steadying himself, shoulders caving forward, his dark curls falling over his eyes, obscuring his face further. He clenches his jaw, a scowl blooming over his lips.

His social anxiety isn’t anything new, and it’s likely exacerbated by the bustle of the nearby college students, who seem to be getting louder by the second. The noise is needling under his skin. He starts his carefully ingrained breathing exercises, tugging in a deep stream of air through his flared nostrils.

But the smell is coffee is too overwhelming and suddenly his ritual doesn’t help much.

He can feel blood leaving his fingertips and toes, or as his cousin Komori puts it [ the inescapable dread of some imagined ailment, which is making him think that his body is rushing blood from his extremities to his vital organs, his fingertips cold, hands shaking, when in reality ‘you’re just feeling unsure of yourself, man. It’ll be ok in a minute, promise!’ ]

But in the end, it doesn’t matter what anyone calls it, or how they think he should feel during these heart pounding moments, he just knows that he wants to get out of here, now.

His agitation must have twisted the top half of his expression because the feel of your warm fingertips against his wrist jerks him out of his head, causing him to suck in an unsteady breath as he lurches backwards, pulling away from your offending touch.

“Oh! Sorry! I didn’t think…I just…” you bite your lip, a look of stark worry passing over your usually open features. “Hey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. Are you…are you ok?”

“I’m fine,” he grunts, teeth clenched, right leg bouncing in place against the tiles. Shit. It’s not like he could have predicted that you’d try to touch him, so you can’t really blame him for his misplaced reaction. Just get him his coffee and he’ll be on his way…

Come on…come on…

“Here you go. Sorry for the wait, Sakusa,” you lift on your tiptoes, the stretch of your legs and arms apparent as you hold his cup out, careful to balance yourself against the lever of the steam wand. He takes the proffered drink and nods his thanks at you, his gaze dark. The gesture might be a little strained, and he knows you likely think he’s some kinda freak at this point, but he’s glad to see your customary smile before he turns, shouldering his way out the door and into the promise of open air.

“Stop being so secretive about this place. It’s not like you can’t search for it online, Omi Omi. I saw you come in with the logo of their shop last week and I wanna try it out. Don’t cha’ gimme that look, I deserve to have good coffee too! And if it’s close by you can’t just keep it to yourself! Think about the rest of us, huh? Besides, I think they’d like to see something other than yer’ prickly face every once in a while.” Golden haired Atsumu Miya, his fellow teammate and setter for the MSBY Black Jackals, has been walking beside him for five blocks, jabbering on about the bland offerings of the big box coffee chains that surround their home gym, and how he hasn’t had a good cup of coffee in days. Tch, he’d said months originally, but that was an obvious lie. After all, Kiyoomi pointed out, slipping his mask on before the two stepped into the strong midday sun, he’d come in with an iced coffee two days ago, proclaiming to the whole team it was the best he’d ever had, bar none.

“It’s a small shop,” Kiyoomi glumly elaborates, his dark hair soaking up the rays of sunlight as they crossed the bustling pedestrian walkway. “I think it’s run by an American. The staff speaks English, besides Japanese. There’s one barista in particular, a young woman, she has–”

“English? Oh, hell yeah! I can practice! This is perfect! They got any specialty drinks? I couldn’t see any from the menu that they had online, but I told ‘Samu I’d send him a picture of the place.”

Hmph, what’s the use of bothering to hold a conversation with this guy, Kiyoomi thinks, obsidian eyes narrowing as his brows furrow over his scrunched face, watching Atsumu chatter on about the vague sampling that he’d seen on their website. He’s not listening, anyway.

The coffee shop bell dings as the two of them step into the space, greeted by a waft of freshly ground coffee and the sharp tang of disinfectant. “Ahhh,” Atsumu says, propping his hands on his trim hips and fixing Kiyoomi with a pointed look, “totally see why you like the place. It smells like they have a freaking bleach, whaddya call those, ah, an air freshener! Yeah, smells like they have an ‘eu de bleach’ wall plug in.”

“It’s clean,” Kiyoomi affirms, his own hands sliding into his pockets, fingers wrapping around his wallet as he steps into the line. “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

“Not at all,” Atsumu grins, resting an arm on Kiyoomi’s shoulder as he glances over the chalkboard menu. “Just can tell that must be why you like this place so much. Bet you huff cleaner as soon as you get home.. Speaking of, I still need to see your new apartment, heard you let Ushijima come by and that’s not fair at all. Kinda– ow! Omi, ya’ friggin ass!”

Kiyoomi jerked his arm upwards as he stepped toward the register and the abrupt displacement sent Atsumu’s hand flying up, managing to perfectly strike himself on his nose as he attempted to counterbalance his sudden shift in momentum.

“HA-ah, ahem, I mean…hello! Nice to see you again, sir!” the barista calls out, poorly concealing his mirth at Atsumu’s fumbling behind a gloved hand. Kiyoomi nods curtly, his order on the tip of his lips, but before he can utter anything Atsumu is beside him again, leaning against the well lit pastry case and peering over his options critically.

“Hmm, ya’ got any of those little madeline cakes? They’re vanilla, kinda look like a shell? Saw em’ on yer’ website.”

The barista gives Atsumu a broad grin and twists to talk with someone who’s below the arched dome of the food case, quietly asking a few questions before looking back at the blonde man. “Yeah, we do! We’re actually just putting them out, my manager is checking for the–”

Atsumu steps impossibly closer to the gleaming glass and pops his head over the dome, peering down at whoever is restocking the sweets. “Oh! Hey there!” he chirps, lowering his chin, his face pulling into an exaggerated, cocky smirk. “Ya’ know what I mean, right? It’s kinda like a cake, but it’s small, like a cookie. It’s French. No, it’s not that. Maybe on the next tray? What? I can’t hear ya’. It’s smaller. I can step around, see if–”

A familiar voice pipes up before Atsumu can move closer and Kiyoomi turns, ears instantly pricking up at the sound of your reply. “I said, I know what a madeline is, sir. I’m rearranging and organizing my cart at the moment and, if you’d like, you can order your drinks first. I’ll have the madeline waiting for you on the other side of the bar.”

“Lemme just see one,” Atsumu grins, resting his hands against the glass. Kiyoomi’s lips curl at the sight, watching Atsumu’s hands leave lingering prints behind. Great, now they’ll need to clean and re-polish the display. Besides, you’d said you had them. Why keep pushing the issue? Ugh. If he wasn’t regretting his decision to show his fellow teammate the shop before, he certainly is now.

“Just wanna make sure we’re on the same page, is all. Ya’ might give me something else by mistake and that’s a waste of time for both of us!” Atsumu’s smile broadens, a shadowed look falling over his angular features.

You hop up from your crouched position, a wrapped package with bright blue lettering that clearly says [ French Vanilla Madeline ] on the side, clutched between your fingers. “Oh no, I get it,” you begin, mimicking Atsumu’s cheshire grin with startling accuracy. “You just want to double check! I mean, the words on the packaging do say: Madeline. So unless you mean something else, something that’s not called ‘A French vanilla madeline, made with real vanilla extract and buttery goodness,’ I think we’ve got you covered.”

Your voice is saccharine sweet, lilting over the words, a well-practiced smile lifting your lips. You’re still clearly mirroring the one Atsumu is giving you. It’s the snappiest your tone has ever been, and the fact that it’s being used against his annoying teammate is priceless. Suddenly, he can’t help the laugh that’s already snickering its way past his mask.

“Oi!” Atsumu cries, pushing himself off the case at last, his teeth gritted at Kiyoomi’s obvious amusement. “I just wanted to check! And you, manager lady, don’t be so mean!”

“Pfft, manager lady? It’s (Y/N). And me? Mean? I was not mean, I told you that we had them! I just needed to FIFO some of the other pastries first,” you defend, a surprised exhale falling from your lips.

“FIFO? What is that? Don’t use that food jargon on me! I get that enough from my brother. He does that crap all the time, like it’s some sorta secret lingo. ‘Don’t do that ‘Tsumu, gotta make sure it’s in date’. ‘Don’t come on the line!’ ‘Gotta wear a hat or a hair net if yer’ gonna be back here!’ ‘Don’t mislabel the rice!’ On and on. What’s with you food people? So uptight. Look, I just wanted to try one. Yer’ reviews said they were good! Here, tell you what, give me two. Don’t laugh! Omi, help! She’s picking on me!”

“Stop it, you’re making a scene. Any other inane questions? Or anything else you’d like to order, because I’m certainly not buying any of this for you,” Kiyoomi replies, sneaking a glance at your bemused expression. You catch his eye and give him a quick wink and he finds that his smile stays with him long after he, and a chastened and satiated Atsumu have left the warmth of the coffee shop.

“Mmm, these are pretty good,” Atsumu mumbles between bites of his madeline. “Ya’ want some?”

He stops by after his evening practice, when the sun has long since fallen past the horizon of the city, but as soon as he rounds the corner he regrets his decision.

The cafe is brimming with people. They’re everywhere; outside, they are clustered on the pavement, sitting on the collection of iron wrought chairs, and gathered in groups. Inside, most are sprawled close to the hand off plane, or draped over the couches and tables. They appear to be animated, with computer screens and voices bright, too bright. His usual spot is taken, and he’s already made up his mind to keep walking on but somehow, somehow, he catches your eye.

Suddenly, the world smells like velvety pine and heady bergamot, and he can’t stop staring down at you.

“Hey! Glad I could catch you. Wanted to tell you good luck on your upcoming game! I think I saw on the news that it’s tomorrow? Right?”

“Yes, we’re playing Azuma Pharmacy. They have a good starting lineup. It’s entirely possible that we’ll lose.”

“Jeez,” you exhale, cocking your head at his serious expression. “Kind of a pessimist, aren’t you?”

“I’m a realist. I’m perfectly prepared to beat them, but things always play out differently on the court, no matter what your personal expectations are.”

You give him another smile. This one comes quickly, and it’s bigger than any of the others, the pull of it lighting up your face. It’s different, and he can tell that the way you’re looking at him has shifted; that you’ve liked this answer. He’s not sure why, it’s the truth. Nothing more, nothing less.

“Good point. Well, win or lose, you’ve got my luck! I better get back inside. Your drink is on me by the way, for the other day…when I touched your hand…well, I’m sure you remember. Anyway, see you, Sakusa!”

He watches you slip past the packed lines of students, already rolling up your sleeves so you can wash your hands. Once you’re behind the espresso machine you’re hidden by the burnished copper and he walks on, shouldering his MSBY bag higher, lifting his coffee to his lips. It’s got a rich flavor, well balanced and expertly poured. Once again, he’s reminded that you’re good at what you do and, despite the balmy heat of early spring, that makes his fingers tingle and his skin break out in gooseflesh.

Later, when he’s falling asleep, he keeps seeing your eyes. Watching as your colored irises come alive in the moonlight, hopeful, shining, and wholly focused on him.

At practice, Atsumu insists on completing his post workout stretching next to him. He’s used to Kiyoomi’s sullen silences and barbed retorts, content to chatter however he pleases, flitting from topic to topic as he eases into his cool down routine.

“I need to go back to that coffee shop. Ya’ been back lately?”

“No,” Kiyoomi lies, brushing a stubborn wave of curls out of his sweaty face.

“Too bad. Maybe after Friday’s practice? That girl really knew her stuff. Made some great coffee, too. What was her name? Ah, that’s right, (Y/N). She’s cute, what’s her story?”

Something twinges against Kiyoomi’s rib cage at the word ‘cute.’ Hmm, that’s not normal. He flips to his left side, facing away from Atsumu’s greedy eyes and leering smiles.

“How long has she worked there?”

“Not sure,” Kiyoomi replies, flattening his palm against the cool flooring of the gym. “At least a year, maybe more.”

“That other barista said she was a manager. She’s not one of the owners, is she?”

“Dunno.”

“Is she a student? Kinda strange to see an American working in Japan, and she’s definitely an American. She’s good with the Japanese, but her accent is off.”

“Your accent is off, so I’m not sure what your point is. I can understand her, and I can’t say the same for you.”

“Jackass!” Atsumu snaps, flopping up from his splayed stretch to butterfly his muscled legs. “It’s called a regional accent, and it’s perfectly normal. Ya’ got one too, city boy!”

“See? No one says things like that. You sound like a cartoon character. Sometimes I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”

“Yer’ full of it!”

“Hmph,” Kiyoomi hums, curling himself onto his haunches and flattening the tops of his hands against the floor. The satisfying crunch of his wrists as his fingers settle makes Atsumu visibly shudder and Kiyoomi flashes him a quick smirk of his own, hoping it will spook his stretching companion enough that he’ll leave him be. He prefers to do his cool down in silence.

“She do anything else? Other than diligently slaving over yer’ coffee, that is?”

Tch. It seems that luck isn’t with him today. “She said she’s a graduate student.”

“Oooh, what’s she studyin’?”

“Not sure.”

“Yer’ about as fun to talk to as a stack of bricks, ya’ know? Bet if I’d asked you what her name was the other day all you’d say was, ‘I use’ta just call her barista: first name: cute, last name: girl.”

Kiyoomi doesn’t reply. Something about these questions is bothering him. He doesn’t like that he can’t answer them properly– it’s frustrating, really. All he can honestly tell Atsumu is that you’re neat and efficient, that you have a smile that he can’t quite shake out of his head, a perfume that he wishes he could place, and that, to date, you’ve given him one free coffee. The fact that he knows that you’re a graduate student is sheer luck, information that you’d happened to share with him, not that he’d asked you about. He uncoils his hands and flips them over, letting his eyes rest against his reddened palms. Oh, and you’d touched his wrist once and the sheer metaphysical weight of that contact had nearly sent him stumbling backwards.

It’s stupid; he’s stupid.

It’s not hard to talk with people. It’s just…he knows he’s not good at it. Besides, when would he practice? He’s surrounded by extroverts; extreme extroverts. Extroverts who defy all sense and who usually can’t be silenced unless they’re tucked into a deep sleep, and even then it’s doubtful. Both Hinata and Bokuto have demonstrated that they can, and will, talk in their sleep. Still, it’s frustrating to find himself boxed into a corner, completely at a loss and unaware of the most cursory, mundane, simple, facts about you. For almost two years, he’s seen you at least twice a week, shouldn’t he know more? Why doesn’t he know more?

“Why not give her a ticket to a game?”

Atsumu’s question makes him lift his head, abandoning his musings as he lets the weight of that suggestion sink in. The setter is crinkling his eyes at him now, that all knowing smirk back on his lips, umber eyes hooded, mischievous. “The front office can do that, ya’ know? We’ve got extras. They keep em’ for that purpose. Just say she’s a special guest, or a potential sponsor. They ain’t gonna question you.”

Kiyoomi looks away, crossing his legs and leaning to his right side, feigning disinterest as Atsumu tells him who he can speak with, where he can see the upcoming calendar, and what seats might be open. It’s a good idea, a great idea, and he can’t help but loathe that Atsumu thought of it first.

The ticket is good for a first row balcony seat.

It’s situated in the best spot. He’d picked it out himself, carefully looking over the colored diagram of the stadium and belaboring the proximity of the sight-lines, wanting to let you have a bird’s eye view of the court. Where would he like to sit, if he could watch a game? What works? What doesn’t? Too high and you can’t catch the movement of the ball. Too low and you can’t see the players. Too far to the right or left and you can’t see the breadth of the court. It’s tricky, and he’s cautious with his selection. He can’t help it.

Kiyoomi only considers you not even liking the sport when he’s placing his order, watching as you carefully tuck his empty cup down on the polished steel of the bar. Shit.

The cafe is quiet. The students are gone, and when the register barista goes to the backroom it’s only him and you in the well lit space. The click of the burr grinder almost makes him jump, and he compromises with his nerves by shifting toward his usual table, resting his bag in the chair and taking in a deep breath.

The gentle press of the tamp is audible over the low beats of the music and he hears you knock the side of the portafilter, no doubt leveling off the crushed arabica before you hook the device under the grouphead. Seconds later he sees you flip the switch for his shots, already grooming his heated, foaming, oat milk in the short pitcher, popping the liquid free of any errant bubbles. You’re gentle with this part, and he’s always loved to watch you pour his cortado, liking the raise of your arm and the flick of your wrist as you let the creamy milk flow into the paper cup, swirling a rosetta design through the ochre of the waiting espresso.

Usually, this well-oiled process of yours calms him, but today he feels fidgety and his head is buzzing. The sooner you finish the drink, the sooner he’ll have to talk to you. Shit, shit. When you move the dark lids forward, his hand feels like it’s heating around the slick paper of the ticket, making it clammy and tacky. He bites his lip and removes his hand from his jacket, wiping his palm against his dark jeans.

You’re already looking up at him, nodding toward the fragrant cup that’s waiting at the edge of the handoff plane. Automatically, he lurches forward, completely in-sync with his familiar routine. The question [ would you like a ticket to one of my games? ] is resting on the tip of his tongue and his fingers are hovering beside his cup. He can see that they’re shaking and that sight doesn’t ease him. Then you ask him something and he feels everything skitter to a halt. Why is this happening? It’s just a ticket, it’s just a game.

Wait. You asked him something?

He does his best to ignore the humming of anxious tension that’s filtering down his fingertips and lifts his bowed head. “What?” he mumbles, lips unsticking at last.

“Just asked how your game went the other day. I tried to record it but my stupid cable box isn’t working. I need to try and see you guys, I know I’ve probably said that before, but it’s pretty pathetic of me to not catch one game when the stadium is only two miles away. Plus, I know y’all are a great team! Heard you made the playoffs last year, that’s so awesome!”

It’s a perfect segway.

But he feels like he’s rooted to the spot, like his tongue is trapped against the roof of his mouth, and his hands are too heavy to move, content to shake beside his cooling drink as he whittles his time away, too filled with the what if’s to do anything about the here and now. He’s going down a mental checklist, mulling over each possibility, cautiously tampering with that heady rush of excitement that’s threatening to bubble out of his masked lips. Shit.

He’s gotta check his vitamin intake, maybe he’s low on omega 3s? The team has a general practitioner on standby. He really should call him after this, maybe run by his office before the next practice.

Something’s off with him.

Wait, that worked.

That shift in his whirring thoughts broke him out of that suspended state and then, before he completely fucks this up, the ticket is down against the counter and he’s muttering something about unlimited uses, that if you can’t make it now, then you can always switch the date, or add someone on, if you have a [ boy ] friend you want to take; the next game works best with the seat that’s listed, he’s checked. He knows it’s open. Again, zero pressure and no worries if you can’t make it. See you around.

You might have responded, you might have smiled, fuck, you might have laughed at him. He’s not sure.

All he knows is that as soon as he is out of the shop he’s calling the team’s gp and confirming an appointment for tomorrow morning. It’s not natural for his heart to stutter and thump like that. It could be an arrhythmia.

It could be any number of things.

He hasn’t felt this nervous about a game in years. Sure, it’s a good team, and they have four players that are of his generation, most of them powerful outside hitters that will probably give the Jackals a good run for their money, but they’re not insurmountable. They can beat VC Kanagawa; they’ll have to if they want to advance further in the lineup for the playoffs.

It’s just…

He keeps looking for that seat. Your seat. He’d gotten to the stadium early; opting to forgo the first team meeting, saying he needed to practice his wall drills, work on his spin, but that’s not the real reason. The real reason is something that he doesn’t want to acknowledge. At least, not before a game. He steadies himself, reiterating that it’s not practical or helpful for him to worry about things like that.

Nevertheless, he’s pinned the seat in his mind. He studied it as the lights shuddered on, the maintenance staff flashing him bewildered looks as he stepped into the empty brightness of the court. He’d found it again during the pre-game warmup, onyx eyes committing the location to memory, searching for the little details that he could watch for if he wanted to find it again, later, when the arena was packed with thousands of eyes and waving signs.

As they open the main doors and the seats fill up, he’s still looking at the seat.

“Whatcha looking at?” Hinata asks, his burst of orange hair already slicked with sweat, vivid eyes sharp.

“Nothing.”

The results of Kiyoomi’s physical had shown no outliers, no cause for worry or concern. Everything was fine. He should just get a little extra potassium in, maybe eat a few more bananas in the morning, or after his practices. He’d been a little miffed when he opened the manilla folder, eyes hunting for abnormalities, for a reason, an explanation. If nothing is wrong, then why does he feel like he’s tingling with adrenaline all the time? It makes him light-headed, sluggish, and that’s detrimental to his playability, to his value to his team.

He looks away from Hinata and paces past Atsumu’s arched eyebrow, ignoring the implications of that wicked grin that’s resting on the setter’s quirked lips. It’s fine; he’s fine. His eyes look up to the balcony again. He really shouldn’t be doing that, he reminds himself. It’s a distraction, and he doesn’t–

Oh. There you are.

He can’t make out details, not from this distance, and he suddenly feels self-conscious about his face. There’s no mask. He doesn’t wear it when he plays, and this will be the first time you’ve seen him without it. Suddenly, he wishes he hadn’t cared so much about the visibility of the court. Why did he plant you so far away? If he can’t see you, then there’s no way you’ll be able to tell which one he is either…oh…wait…his name is on the back of his jersey and they’ll announce his number. Nevermind.

The referee calls for the teams to line up and he diligently follows his teammates, standing in his usual spot, ignoring the dull thump of his heart as it beats a ragged tattoo under his ribs.

They won.

They won, and he’d racked up a whopping 23 points for himself, a personal milestone. It’ll be something that will go down on his athletic record, that the local and national news reports will chatter about, that he can feel proud of. He’s glad; you always show him your best, so it’s only fair he does the same for you too.

He’d peeked up at your seat during each time out, each break, every time the momentum shifted, and before he hit every serve. You looked like you had your feet propped up, resting against the metal barrier of the balcony, and he could see that your arms were wrapped around your knees. You were paying attention, and that knowledge made his lungs swell and his pulse quicken.

Now, after he’s finished toweling some of the clinging sweat from his brow and the matted droop of his obsidian curls, he twists back, facing your seat, but you’re not there. An empty curve of plastic greets him and his heavy brows furrow, his fingers dropping the towel onto the bench as they curl up into his palms.

Did you leave? It would make sense, he supposes. The game is over. He just thought you might come down. Might want to talk. Not that he’d have much to say. He never does. Stupid; what would he talk with you about? See the game? Yeah, duh.

The distant voice of MSBY’s public relations manager is calling for him. He’ll worry about it [ you ] later, he thinks, he’s still got a job to do.

During his interview he can hear Atsumu’s voice. It’s annoying. While the setter doesn’t attempt to tone himself down, he rarely talks that loudly. Kiyoomi glances over at his straight back, watching as his hand cups against the back of his golden head, an infectious laugh bursting from his turned lips. Strange. It’s not like him to chat with someone for that long, not when he’s got his own post-game interviews to conduct. He usually–

Ah, it’s you.

Suddenly, questions like: [ how does it feel to be considered for the 2025 Japanese Olympic team? ] don’t matter. His head is half cocked now, dark eyes following the two of you, his comments to the national reporter falling into clipped monosyllables. This is unprofessional; he should focus on the matter at hand, it’s not like him to be distracted.

He’s been thinking about that a lot lately. That so many things are suddenly not like him.

When you push playfully at Atsumu’s shoulder, he lapses into a stormy silence, nails biting into his clenched palms, pressing half moons into his calloused skin. After answering one more question: [ something about his future plans - how’s he supposed to know? That depends on trades, on opportunities. And right now he’s not in the correct frame of mind to answer honestly, not when he can see that you’re right there ] he bows to the smiling face of the reporter, formally concluding his participation in the interview. He knows it’s abrupt; he knows he’ll likely get an earful from the MSBY PR director, from his coach, and from himself, when the full weight of his uncharacteristic rashness hits him, but right now he doesn’t care.

His feet feel like lead and the steps that he’s taking shudder against the gym’s polished flooring. He’s usually smoother than this, more collected, but can’t will himself to stop lurching forward. He tucks his hands into the darkness of his team jacket, coiling his numb fingers into tight balls, and hunches his shoulders. He likely looks like thunder and this suspicion is confirmed when a ball boy scuttles out of his path, eyes wide, but Kiyoomi doesn’t care.

Atsumu hasn’t noticed his approach, but you do, and that shy wave and familiar smile makes his breath catch in his throat. Damn it. What’s going on with him?

Atsumu notices your wandering attention and turns, following your gaze. Once he spots Kiyoomi, he gives him a cheeky smirk, dipping his chin, lazily fixing his amber eyes on Kiyoomi’s arched figure. “Look who caaame!” he calls, lacing his tone with poorly concealed glee. “She said you gave her a ticket. What a great, absolutely original, idea! And you had your record breaking scoring streak today too! Hey! Maybe she’s good luck! Watch out (Y/N), pretty soon we’ll be hooking you up with a personal mascot job if ya’ can light such a fire under our stoic hitter’s ass. Must be something special in that coffee yer’ serving him.”

Kiyoomi narrows his eyes at Atsumu’s blatant needling and the setter chuckles, flipping his focus back to you, sensing the rising agitation that is rolling off of Kiyoomi in waves now. “Well, sure was good to see ya’ again! Talk to me next time, huh? I’ll get you a boxed seat. It’s much better than those nosebleeds in the balconies.”

You shake your head, a smile pulling at your lips, and make a show of rolling your eyes. “Flattery doesn’t suit you, you know? And what boxed seats? Feels like I’d see them if you had them,” you tease, earning yourself a last laugh and Atsumu’s back, a friendly hand waving a last goodbye as he finally strides toward the waiting cameras. Kiyoomi watches him go, his shoulders tense, a feeling of unease settling in his gut. Is Atsumu doing this on purpose?

He almost snaps a retort at his retreating figure, but the sound of your voice immediately snatches his attention toward you. His dark gaze meets yours and the look in your eyes makes his palms feel itchy and his feet scuff mindlessly against the floor.

“This is gonna sound so dumb, but it’s been on my mind since I got here…”

Kiyoomi’s fingers twist in his pockets, coiling over each digit, and his pulse feels like it’s speeding up again. “What?”

“It’s just…well, you look so much younger without the mask,” you let out a small laugh and duck your head, teeth pulling at your lower lip as you face away from his widening eyes.

“Is that bad?”

“No! You look good! Uh, I mean, not that you didn’t…I just wasn’t sure…not that I’d thought about it…a lot…uh, I…yeah, I’m…No, it’s not bad!” You press your hands against your mouth, steepling your fingers under your nose and fix him with a sheepish grin. “Anyway, I know you’ve got things to do, but Miya was right about one thing, you had a great game. I had a lot of fun and it was so nice of you to get me that ticket, and well…”

You pause, lowering your hands to yank your purse forward, fingers digging into the leather before you right yourself once more, returning with a small, zipped bag, and a plastic card that’s balancing atop the metal teeth. “It’s a…well…I sorta tried to think of some things that you might like. To say thanks! It’s nothing fancy. A nail filing kit, because I read that volleyball guys like to keep their hands in tiptop shape, one of those portable ball pumps and some masks.

The masks are from a great company, back home, er, in the states. Well, at least I like them, they’re super durable. And the card, uh, ha, um, the card is to the cafe. I know it’s not super original, but I didn’t know if you liked any other places. And I didn’t wanna assume or — Haha, oh God, I am talking your ear off. Just…here! Take this from me so I can get my foot outta my mouth, okay?”

You press the bag forward and before he can tell you he doesn’t accept gifts from fans, his hands are already out of the safety of his pockets, firmly wrapping around your offering. “Thank you,” he bows. He wants to say more, but he’s not sure how.

He didn’t mean to come by the cafe.

He thought he’d go for a quick run before practice, maybe loop the block, or jog toward the university. None of these things are close to the cafe, but apparently his feet had other ideas. The shop bell rings when he steps inside, wiping some hand sanitizer against his heated palms, onyx eyes alert, already searching for you.

A male barista [ is it Kane? ] greets him and before he can stop himself, he’s asking if you’re there. “Oh, (Y/N)? Nah, she’s off today. But I can make your cortado, you get almond milk, right?”

“Oat,” Kiyoomi replies, voice muffled by his mask. Damn. Why did he come here? He didn’t mean to and now it’s looking like it was a wasted trip. A useless instinct. He’d wanted to thank you properly for your gift, which had been on his mind a lot the past few days. Perhaps that’s why he felt so compelled to jog the extra mile, why he can’t seem to keep away, why he keeps looking for you as he waits, even though he knows you’re not here.

Maybe he can text you his thanks. That would make all of this easier. Oh, wait, does he even have your number? He pulls his phone out of his pocket and examines his contact list, searching for you. No, nothing under your name. Maybe he put it under something else? [ barista? cafe? ] Again, there’s nothing. Damn. Why didn’t he ask at the game? Or when he gave you the ticket?

When he picks up his drink and paces back into the sunshine, he’s still kicking himself that he hasn’t asked for your number yet. It would have made things so much simpler, he reasons, sipping at his coffee; now he’ll have to come back.

But days pass, and he hasn’t returned.

There’s just too much going on. Too many team meetings and late practices. Too much preparation. The pace of his schedule has never bothered him before, but now he keeps hoping for some kind of reprieve.

The other morning Atsumu strode into a meeting with a cup from your cafe, proudly flaunting the familiar label. It made Kiyoomi’s blood boil [ did he see you? talk with you? Did he get to see that addictively pleasing smile of yours? ] and later that afternoon he experienced his first scolding.

“What’s going on, Omi? Five missed digs? This isn’t like you. You look like your head is in the clouds. Come on, get it together. Big game in five days.”

“Sorry, won’t happen again.” It’s all he can say.

When he’s heading toward the team showers, he catches sight of Atsumu’s knowing leer and he grits his teeth, ignoring the huffed snicker and scoffing head shake that the setter sends his way.

Finally, two days later, he’s got some free time. There are other errands he needs to run, things he should do, but the only thing he can think about is you.

He’s walking up from a side street, one he rarely takes, when, at long last, he catches sight of you. You must be on a break. You’re sitting at a bench, facing a small, but well laid flower bed, flipping the pages of your open book languidly as you read under the cool shade of a gnarled tree.

He’s glad he’s wearing the mask that you gifted him.

You’d said that they were durable, and their quality had genuinely impressed him. When he got home, after the game, he slipped them out of their individual plastic cases, fingering the thick, well made materials before washing one. He’d left the others in their containers. He’ll use them, eventually, but not right now. He wants to savor them. He wants them to last.

Kiyoomi is almost to your side when you look up and he bites against his lower lip as soon as you give him that friendly smile of yours, already closing your book and standing, waiting for him to step closer. He comes to a stop in front of you, peering down at you through his dark lashes.

You always smell so nice, he thinks, unconsciously shifting closer, seeking more. You must have showered before coming into your shift because the crisp scent of peppermint and gentle lavender makes his nostrils flare hungrily under his mask.

“Hey there!” you begin, tucking your book into your arms. “Long time no see. How have you been?”

“Fine. I have practice later. I came by the other day. I…” he lapses into frustrated silence, dark brows falling, letting his hands grip at the material of his jacket. Why is this so hard? You, all the others on his team, Motoya [ hell, even the notoriously impassive Wakatoshi has come out of his shell over the years ] can slip into a conversation. Damn it, how can everyone else make this look so easy?

“Saw you’re playing the Adlers soon. They’re the team the Jackals have a sorta rivalry with, right?”

He blinks down at you and lets out a shallow exhale. There you go again. You’re giving him a life raft, a conversation he can fall into, something he enjoys talking about. He remembers his stilted conversation with Atsumu, the one where he did not know about any of the basic things, the obvious things, the things that made you, you. It’s nice that you’re looking out for him, that you’re helping him along, but he doesn’t want to talk about volleyball, not right now.

“We do. How did your finals go? You said you had a dissertation?”

“Oh!” you blurt, your eyes widening, but you’re clearly pleased, even a little excited that he’s asked. “You remembered! Finished it up last week. Now I just need to knock out my revisions and I’ll either go back to committee, or they’ll approve it! I’m hoping they approve it. I’m sick of looking at it, haha.” Your fingers tap against your book and you duck your head, a quick smile passing over your smooth lips. “Uh, did you want to come in for a coffee? Not trying to hold you up, if you’ve got practice to go to.”

“I was the one who came over.” He sounds a little harsh, he thinks, nose wrinkling under his mask. He’s never worried about being blunt, but that doesn’t work here. He doesn’t want to be, not with you. “I mean, I wanted…wanted to say thanks, for the masks and the other things. I like them.” He points to his covered face and you let out a chuckle, gleaming eyes crinkling as you look up at him. Damn, you’re pretty. How has he not noticed that before? He wants to see you laugh again, he’s just not sure how to go about it. Does he even know any jokes? Shit.

“Awe, I’m glad you like them! Speaking of, Atsumu came by a few days ago, I guess you must have worn one around him because he was trying to sniff out if I’d given them to you. He’s a funny guy, but I cannot get a good read on him. It’s almost like he’s doing stuff on purpose, but he’s never blatantly obvious about it. The way he was talking, I was kinda worried he was trying to play a prank on you. Does he like to get under your skin or something? He’s–”

Kiyoomi’s not thinking when he leans down. He’s been doing that a lot lately, not thinking. It makes his skin prickle. Or is that the smell of peppermint on your clean neck, the fragrant lavender in your hair? The kiss is soft; more of a press of his lips than a real caress. But it’s nice, and he actually likes being this close to you, but something feels off and, ah, damn it.

His dark brows knit together, furrowing his forehead, when he realizes what he’s done. He didn’t take off his mask. How stupid. But that shaky gasp of air that you let out when he pulls away, and the following upward lift of your body, your lips chasing his, clearly wanting him to come back, oh that’s so worth it, mask or not.

Your eyes are the first thing he sees when he looks back down, and he doesn’t think he’s ever seen something so perfect. They’re bright, vibrant, and rich with an excitement that makes his toes curl.

The smell of lavender and peppermint, of you, is almost overwhelming, and yet somehow it’s all together, not enough. He doesn’t say anything and neither do you.

What is there to say?

That one, half-formed, touch said it all. It expressed every frustration that he’s felt over the last few weeks, every faded memory of your voice, of your playful smiles, of those hesitant conversations you’ve helped him through. It’s all there, sitting quietly between the two of you, shimmering in the sunlight as you take a step closer and his hands finally fall out of his pockets, waiting, hoping for yours.

“(Y/N)! Break’s over! Coffee’s not gonna brew itself!”

The distant voice of your coworker shatters the euphoria and you tense, pulling away, your head turning toward the barked command as you call out your reply. Kiyoomi huffs out an impatient breath. He wanted to try that again. Do it right this time. How pathetic is he? Kissing you through a mask? But his annoyance dies when you face him again, slipping your hand tentatively into his.

His digits fall limply around yours and he can’t help but marvel at the softness of you. One of his thumbs lifts and he traces the skin along your knuckles, unsure if he’s even breathing anymore. “Come on,” you say, looking down at his touch before lacing your fingers through his, showing him how to hold you. “I’ll make your coffee.”

You’re walking forward and he has the inane urge to snatch you back, wanting to see how the rest of you feels, wanting to know how you’ll fit into his arms, but he distracts himself by following you. There’s a budding warmth that’s spreading from his palm, where your hand rests inside his, to his chest. It feels like a low burning fire is coursing along his veins and his heartbeat thuds out of rhythm, but for once he doesn’t care.

In fact, he thinks he likes it.

He sits in the cafe for too long, his coffee cold, the cup almost empty. But before he leaves [ already so, so late for practice ] he gets your number.

He taps the unfamiliar digits carefully into his device and you watch from the counter, your chin propped in your hand, a gentle smile kissing against your palm. Then he stands, pausing beside you and you run your index finger down his arm, lingering your touch beside his wrist, making him shiver in the warm sunlight, a pleased grin hidden behind his mask.

notes: this man has what, 10 pages of interaction? idk why and idk how, but he is stuck in my brain - like, seriously send help, i think i’m in love.

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morphinethevaccine · 4 years ago

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Would you want to be their roommate? (ADA Edition)

a/n: In which you're the roommate of various Armed Detective Agency members. I'm only like, half serious.

— Dazai Osamu Boundaries? I don't know her.

Rule #1 of rooming with Dazai is understand he's a hypocrite. While he's 100% the type to read your diary, eat your snacks with zero intention of replacing them and take your stuff without asking, he does not want the favor returned.

Honestly, Dazai prefers to have his own space. Having a roommate makes it a little hard to engage in some of his more reckless endeavors, like ignoring warning labels to mix bleach and ammonia, trying to inhale oven fumes, and womanizing (its not like he usually brings people back to his place anyway because he isn’t keen on people knowing where he lives, but the point still stands).

Just pay little mind to the fact your toaster is missing because he tried (and failed) to drop it in the bathtub with him. Again.

— Atsushi Nakajima and Kyouka Izumi I feel a sitcom coming on.

Moving in with a stoic former murder turned do-gooder and the traumatized orphan with a self worth problem too many sounds like a scriptwriting fever dream. But hey, a positive: no matter how screwy your background is, you don't have to feel like the weird one.

Quirks aside, neither makes a bad roommate: Atsushi is thoughtful, caring, and marginally domestic, while Kyouka minds her business by staying out the way for the most part.

Considering the bizarre makeup of the occupants, people might look at the three of you and wonder how you manage to coexist. Maybe the three of you can even be the wholesome version of Three's Company, complete with regular misunderstandings that could have easily been avoided had someone just been more forthcoming.

— Doppo Kunikida Is this really how you want to live your life?

Has his lights on timer and 'quiet hours' he sticks to religiously. Organized to a 'T': you putting things back in the incorrect place or leaving a jar on the wrong shelf in the pantry is going to give him a tension headache.

Definitely shouldn't be the residence of choice for messy people, those inept at reading social cues (who in turn won't know when to shut up and leave him alone), or anyone with an alternative sleep pattern. Will not hesitate to tell you off if you're running the microwave at 2 am.

A great place for routine addicts or wayward souls in need of someone to beat order and structure into their head-- sometimes literally, but for the non-anal retentive, this is probably the closest form of spiritual suicide on this side of heaven.

— Jun'ichiro Tanizaki and Naomi Tanizaki For those who don't value their mental health.

At first glance, not a bad place to stay. Jun'ichiro’s a solid cook, gives off everyman/boy-next-door vibes and is relatively sane (unless Naomi's in danger). Naomi's nice enough and likely a fun person to hang around assuming she's not glued to her brother's side.

But don't get too excited just yet. Both tend to be fine, if not enjoyable to interact with individually, but the main problem with rooming with this pair is having to stomach them together.

Imagine listening to these two doting on each other. All the time. Hearing that day after day is going to shave at least 10 years off your total lifespan, give or take. I suppose you can invest in earplugs and work on expanding your happy place, but is it really worth it?

— Ranpo Edogawa Roommates? I think you misspelled 'parent and child’

Expect to hear "Great Detectives don't do (insert thing he should definitely be doing)" often. Could be a great roommate if he applied himself, but his laziness tends to delve into 'hand me the remote even though it's an inch from my fingertips' territory.

Don't expect him to know how to use the garbage disposal or run the dishwasher (or be apologetic about either fact). Can't be trusted to buy groceries: his contributions are just the entirety of the snack aisle: Twizzlers, Mike and Ike's and this color changing drink he found at the convenience store.

Pushes off things he should be doing (like his laundry) on you because 'you're washing clothes anyway' and has the frustrating tendency to only 'deduce' things you really don't want him to, like why your girlfriend or boyfriend broke up with you.

— Akiko Yosano Not too bad, actually.

While Yosano might come across intimidating, she's largely harmless to the average joe or jane. Unless you piss her off, she has little reason to saw off any of your extremities.

Generally speaking, she’s a normal roommate who respects your personal space (and expects the same in return, so please do the same if you value your life) and takes care of her portion of shared responsibilities without issue. Yosano isn't argumentative, but she's not one to bite her tongue, either.

So if you're looking for a roommate who's not going to call you out if you're on some bullshit, Yosano is not that roommate. As long as you pull your weight and aren't unusually annoying, the two of you can manage a cordial relationship with minimal threats and/or bloodshed.

— Kenji Miyazawa Prepare yourself for a host of weird proverbs.

Has a 50/50 chance of calling you 'roomie' ("Because that's what city people say, right?") or something else mildly irritating. As the literal personification of its not that deep, it's pretty impossible to get him upset, which is great news for you-- just in case you happen to be the annoying one in this scenario.

Kenji's probably the most laidback roommate of the ADA roster, who wouldn’t fight you for ownership of the larger bedroom or get salty if you monopolize the bathroom.

Bonus points if you happen to find his often bizarre stories about life in the country entertaining rather than disturbing (said stories are always told with a smile no matter how screwed up they are, of course, because this is Kenji.) Overall, not a bad person to have as a roommate unless positivity and blind optimism tend to give you hives.

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hanniiesuckle17 · 4 years ago

Text

The Cake

A/n: Sorry this took so long but I'm obsessed with how this turned out. i hope you guys like this little crack fic ahha (this is also not thoroughly edited.)

Requested: @moonlit-han-main

Tag List: @ashisparanoid @mini-meanhoe @leggomylino @hanstagrams @desertofdessert @hoes4hoseok @yangomangos @jeonqqin @geminirules @crscendoforsung @mrsunshine999 @jisungsjheekies @hannie-squirrel00 @cotccotc @kodzu-ken @konenichi @yangs-jeongin @binniebutter

Warnings: Cussing probably

Word Count: 1.9k

Summary: Being pregnant is stress enough. Having Changbin as the father while quite possibly the greatest thing that has ever happened to Y/n. It was also the most stressful thing that had every happened to Y/n. Prepping for their gender reveal party is a huge ordeal and all the boys are excited to come and help. However, sometimes there are too many cooks in the kitchen.

Genre: comedy, crack, lil romance, fluff, established relationship!au, future parent!au, Fem Reader, Ft.3RACHA

✧

Changbin’s POV

“Jisung, you know Y/n said no alcohol.”

I sighed seeing my friend carrying an armful of liquor bottles into the kitchen. He laughed less than gently setting them on the island counter. The apartment I shared with Y/n was rather small and the kitchen was basically open to the living room. The clinking of glass bottles had me rolling my eyes. “No. She said no alcohol for her. Duh. She’s pregnant!”

Jisung’s dark fluffy hair fell in front of his doe eyes, but did not hide the impish smile he wore. The door of the apartment swung open to reveal Chan, a square box in hand.

“Is that it?” I asked eagerly as he set the carton down in the kitchen with us. Feeling cramped in the space, Jisung squeezed past us onto the other side of the counter in the living room.

Chan nodded and flipped open the lid of the carton to reveal a bright white cake. “Just picked it up from the bakery.”

“And he didn’t tell you what color was inside?”

“Do you think I would have walked in that calmly if I knew the gender of your kid?”

I shrugged, listing my head. “Yeah, that checks out.” Swatting Jisung’s hand away I shut the lid keeping him from tasting Y/n and my gender reveal cake. We had been holding off on knowing the gender and both of us were beginning to grow restless with her due date only a few months away. “Chan can you put it on the cake thingy Y/n bought.”

“It has a name.”

“Do you know what it is?” I asked walking to the other side of the counter. Chan stood, eyes blinking at an abnormal pace. “Cake thingy it is then. Y/n will be here in three hours so we have to finish decorating.” The boys nodded and we set to work about putting up the party decorations.

An hour later the apartment was filled with colorful balloons and cheap streamers. The boys and I stood looking around at our hard work. The cake sat on the counter looking perfect as ever. The living room was bursting with color and the drinks and snacks were laid out and only partially eaten by Jisung.

“Wow. We did it.” Chan said, standing proudly with his hands on his hips surveying our hard work. It was unbelievable that we actually managed to get everything done and looking perfect with so much time to spare. “Where’s Jisung?”

I shrugged. “I think he said he was putting the broom back in the kitchen.”

“Hey guys, should we put the cake on the table?”

We turned around to see Jisung holding the beautifully frosted white cake. The cake that was going to tell us the gender of the baby. “Jisung wait-”

“Woah!”

Everything happened in slow motion. Chan and I both lunged forward. We watched in horror as Jisung disappeared below the kitchen island and the cake was thrown up into the air..The delicatable perfect pastry was turning over in the air, gravity pulling it down.

SPLAT

Chan froze behind me. My hands latched onto the edge of the island counter, anchoring them in place so as not to strangle the nearest squirrel. Jisung slowly stood up facing us, white frosting in his hair. brown hair. Slowly his eyes traveled down to the mess he created.

“WAIT! DON’T LOOK DOWN!” I screamed holding out my hands to stop him. My friend’s eyes shot up and he looked at the ceiling. “Nobody....look....at the kitchen floor.”

“Why can’t we-”

“BECAUSE, CHAN.......if the cake is on the floor....we’ll see what color the cake is.”

Hearing this Jisung covered his eyes with his hands. “Fuck. Guys. I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry. Like I’m really sorry.”

I sighed rubbing my forehead, a headache beginning. “Jisung quit you’re blubbering. It’s not going to help.” We now had no cake; the literal centerpiece of the entire party. “Y/n will be here in two hours. We need to clean this mess up now.”

Chan ran a hand through his hair in stress. The man was going to have gray hair before he was thirty. “How are we supposed to clean if we can’t look at the floor?” My eyes fell onto the kitchen counter. A dish rag hung on the edge of the sink.

“I’ve got an idea.”

✧

My left hand felt blindy around for the edge of the counter. The other pushed a mop around the kitchen. The kitchen towel was itchy against my eyes, but I would rather keep my eyes in my head than have them end up in Y/n’s purse if I saw the color of the cake.

A sudden whack to my ass had me yelping and shooting up from my hunched position. “Ow- what the hell?” My ears picked up the sound of a dust pan falling to the floor.

“Sorry, I was turning around.”

“Jisung, my ass is reserved for Y/n. Hands off. Dust pans too.”

Chan chuckled not far away from me. These makeshift blindfolds really were a bitch. “That is something I never thought I would ever hear. Don’t say it again.”

After a few more minutes of sightless fumbling and cleaning, the three of us sighed. “I think we did it.” Jisung mumbled. “Can I take this off now?”

I nodded, despite my friends lack of ability to see. “Okay. Take em off.”

Pulling off the blindfolds, we were met with a horrifying sight. Every inch of my kitchen- of Y/n’s kitchen, was smeared and stained bright blue. Not only was the frosting on the floor, but it was on the cabinets, the counters, even the walls.

“It’s.......everywhere...” Chan mumbled, staring at the catastrophe. “How did it get everywhere? I thought we cleaned it!”

Jisung’s eyes widened. His hand clapped onto my shoulder. “Dude! You’re having a boy!” Both Chan and I looked over at him with a pointed stare. “What? Don’t look at me like that. What the fuck did I do?”

“You’re in deep shit.” Chris laughed looking at the cerulean stained tile.

My eyes widened, turning to my friend. “Nuh uh. We are in deep shit. Jisung is the one that dropped the cake.”

“And how is that my fault?!”

“I don’t know! You’re the smart one! Fix this!”

The leader ran his long pale hands through his hair. After pacing through the smeared frosting I was beginning to think we were indeed truly fucked. I began to lose hope until I saw an idea pass through Chan’s dark eyes. “You got an idea?” The youngest asked, swiping his finger along the counter and bringing the blue frosting up to his lips. He nodded, determination set on his face.

“Call Felix.”

✧

A white blonde head of hair pranced through the door seventeen minutes later carrying a bucket with bleach and two bags of groceries. “You called for a miracle?” The boys smiled and looked at the three of us covered in icing.

“Yeah, Felix, why’d you show up.” Jisung laughed only to be elbowed in the stomach by Chan.

“Felix....help,” I pleaded. The boy shoved the bucket into Jisung’s arms and peeked into the kitchen looking over the disaster we created. He whistled, brows raising in surprise. “We have an hour and a half. Can you do it?”

His head tilted and a deep chuckle bubbled up in his chest. “Of course I can.” the boys and I let out a sigh of relief. “Chan, you and father-to-be deep clean the kitchen. Jisung, you and I will take care of the cake.” We all just stared at Felix as he barked out orders. “LET’S MOVE BOYS! LET’S GO, GO, GO!”

Scrambling, the four of us raced to fix the calamity before Y/n could come home and ever find out that we not only found out the gender of our child early, but quite possibly permanently stained her nice kitchen turquoise.

The short time we had soon fizzled into nothing and the sound of keys turning in the lock of the front door had every body in the apartment rushing to cover up the last bits of our mishap.

Y/n walked in with a smile. The four of us rushed to appear as if nothing had ever happened. Chan launched himself onto the couch. Jisung admired one of our one posters that was hanging framed in the living room. Felix pretended to be inspecting our Vitamix that he gave us last Christmas as he always did when he came over to see if it had been used yet.

I greet her with a hug, kissing her cheek. “Hi, Binnie!” Pulling away she looked around the apartment at the boys who were less than nonchalant, her eyes particularly falling on Jisung. Felix waved to her from the kitchen. “Oh- Lix! I thought you weren’t coming until the party started?”

“I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d...drop...by.” He smirked and I glared at him from behind my pregnant fiancee.

“Well, you’re always welcome!” She looked around the at the decorations and we all held our breath as she entered the kitchen. Y/n’s eyes lit up as her eyes landed on the cake. It looked almost exactly like the one Jisung had dropped only hours before. “Is this the cake? It looks so good! No one peeked right?”

“No, no.”

“Not me.”

“I don’t even know what a cake is.”

“We would never.”

Giving us all weird eyes, Y/n chuckled and put a glass cover over the cake display. “The party will start soon. Thank you guys so much for helping out!” Letting loose a shaky breath I watched her wander into the bedroom to change for the soon coming party.

“I think we got away with it guys. Not a word.”

✧

The party was in full swing. Friends and family mingled in our apartment and gifts for the baby and us were being stacked by the door. Chan was on Jisung detail keeping him far away from Cake 2.0.

“Hey, everyone, it’s time to cut the cake!” The crowd cheered and gather around Y/n and I as we stood behind the cake Felix made with the minuscule help from Jisung. Nervously, I handed Y/n the knife and cast a wary glance towards the four other boys who were obviously sweating. The blade cut through the airy confection with ease.

“Ummm......Changbin.....”

“Yes?”

Her brows rose and she dumped the cut piece of cake on a plate. “Do you mind telling me why this cake has green filling, babe?” Y/n watched me blink, completely frozen in place. “Is there an alien or Shrek growing in my belly? Changbin what the hell?”

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Felix slap Jisung upside the head. “What did you do? I gave you the food coloring!” He whispered clearing exasperated.

“I put it in the cake mix, just like you said!”

Felix groaned and held his head in his hands. “Dude! I told you to put the coloring in the whipped filling! That was yellow cake batter! You mix blue and yellow you get fucking green! You made Changbin have a Shrek baby!”

The two continued to bicker while Y/n turned to me with a furious look in her eyes. “What did you do....”

“Jisungdroppedthecakeitwasn’tmyfaultthenweallputonblindfoldssowewouldn’tseewhatcoloritwasonthefloorandthefrostinggoteverywheresowecalledFelixandhewaslikethebleachfairyandheandJisungmadeanothercakeandI’msosorrybabyIloveyou.” I sputtered at top speed.

She just blinked, trying to process my words. “I don’t even know...how to even comphrend what’s going on. Honestly at this point I’m not even sure I’m not growing a Shrek in my belly.”

I smiled leaning down and kissing Y/n’s soft lips. “No,” She looked up at me with soft eyes, anger slowly leaving. “That’s our son.”

“He still might turn out to be Shrek.”

“Shut up, Jisung.”

✧

Masterlist

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nbrook29 · 4 years ago

Note

99 🖤🖤

Hello there! You’re officially my last dialogue prompt 🤩 I’m sorry this took so long, anon, I hope you’re gonna like it at least a little 🤓

I don’t take prompts for this challenge anymore. Just wanted to put that out there 😇 There are so many amazing ones on that list, but as of now I have 3 WIPs and one additional one in the works and I’d like to finish them before wtfock ends 😅

Anywho, here you go!

99. “I don’t think I’ve ever played spin the bottle.”

* * *

Robbe is going to kill Moyo.

In fact, he's going to kill all three of his so-called friends because none of them protested when Moyo, tipsy and on his way to drunk, announced that this party sucked and was in dire need of some spice.

He wishes he had listened to his past self and stayed home just like he had originally planned. It was supposed to be a quiet night in, editing videos or maybe spent in bed rewatching Romeo and Juliet in peace with no broers around to mock his movie choice while stuffing his face with onion chips and pretending the movie does not make him emotional, no sir. The wetness in his eyes must be sweat, not tears.

Then, after the movie would have ended, his sulking levels high, it would be time for his favorite activity of recent - daydreaming about reality in which he actually had the fucking guts to make a proper move instead of turning red everytime a certain someone was in his close proximity; smiling at him with that perfect sweet lovely smile that turned his already gorgeous features so much more beautiful that Robbe could weep.

And doesn’t that sound like a magnificent evening?

It may sound kinda lame, Robbe is a man enough to admit that, but the prospect of spending the night watching his friends salivating over girls they can’t get being the alternative wouldn't be particularly alluring to anyone, he guesses. Especially since he never partakes in that salivating part himself, instead chugging one beer after another and playing his designated role of a wallflower.

Story of his life.

The whole thing just plain sucks, because it’s not like his friends aren’t well aware of the fact that Robbe’s interests lie elsewhere and that he’s usually bored out of his mind at those parties. But when there’s at least a semi-attractive girl around them they don’t care about anything else but getting her number and Robbe’s not exactly their priority then. In fact, he could well enough not be there at all and it wouldn’t make much difference. It happens every time they drag him along to those parties and every time he just stands there, rolling his eyes on their embarrassing attempts of flirting.

Not like he’s the master of flirting himself, but even he’s not capable of stooping as low as they usually do.

This time, he reluctantly agreed to come to this one, against his better judgement, after Jens bugged him about it for their entire biology class, trying to convince him it was going to be more of a small gathering rather than a party. And frankly speaking, he did that just to make him shut up so mrs Jansen stopped glaring at him. Like he was the one running his mouth.

Once Robbe said the magic words “I’ll be there” there was no way of getting out of it. Still, his plan was to come by for an hour or two to get the broers of his back, drink a few beers, talk to Jana maybe, and then quietly leave when everyone would be too drunk and too busy tonguing at each other's tonsils to notice he's gone.

But to his surprise, the party turned out not to be the typical banger they usually attended. It wasn’t even that bad and he was kinda having fun since he wasn't forced to play the guys' sidekick-gay-friend this time around and instead was dragged by Zoe to the kitchen to drink shots with her, Jana and Luca right after he arrived.

However, parties are not really his scene in general so when it started getting really late he finished his last Buttery Nipple shot composed by Luca (don’t ask) and was just about to make an apologetic face at the girls and say his goodbyes.

But then Noor and Brit arrived.

With him.

And Robbe almost swallowed his tongue.

Nobody should have the right to look this good but there he was, laughing with Milan in the hall while taking his signature leather jacket off, running a hand through his smooth like silk hair (Robbe's convinced it's indeed very silky) to ruffle it a little like it ever needed any styling, and in general looking like he had just walked out of Robbe's dream straight into Milan's apartment.

Sander Driesen.

The reason for Robbe’s cheeks being permanently stained pink as of late.

They met at one of those after school clubs led by Amber several weeks ago that Robbe came to only because he agreed (after pretty much being blackmailed into it) to play Aaron’s wingman in winning Amber’s heart.

He was gone as soon as those green eyes met his and the boy in front of him, wearing a black Bowie t-shirt and a leather jacket, shook his hand while smiling a little unsurely but still friendly, never breaking their eye contact as he introduced himself in a honey-like voice that penetrated every cell of his body, knees buckling a little, heart stuttering, the whole shebang.

He’s still thanking god he managed to hold back the whimper that was about to get out when he was saying his own name back.

Needless to say, the meeting became much more bearable after that.

Even having to witness Aaron’s cringeworthy attempts of gaining Amber’s attention weren’t that bad anymore. Not when they made Sander chuckle under his breath and catch his eye over Amber’s shoulder, winking at Robbe with a mischief dancing in his eyes as he bit his lip to keep his own laugh at bay.

And then, Amber came up with some stupid “love excercise” or whatever the fuck she called it and made them all hold hands in a circle. She claimed it released stress and spread positivity or some other bullshit, but Robbe was convinced it was just a ploy she came up with to hold the school’s number one fuckboy Senne’s hand (who, if Robbe had to guess, also wasn’t there out of his own free will).

Robbe wasn’t a very touchy-feely person, especially with people he had no business of touching in the first place so the whole thing was beyond painful. Thankfully, Jana came to his rescue, snatching his right hand as they exchanged smirks over Amber’s lofty speech about positive energy filling their bodies.

But then someone else gently took his other hand and when he went to inspect who it was, annoyance already starting to creep in, his mouth went dry, eyes going up, up, up the person’s leather-clad arm before stopping on Sander’s face, looking far too entertained.

The boy took an overly deep breath, eyes closed and face feigning seriousness, breathing out loudly.

“Ahh, I can already feel that rush of energy,” Sander leaned in to whisper to him, a teasing tilt to his voice making Robbe giggled at his antics.

“I guess Amber was right then.”

“No no, I don’t think it’s Amber’s techniques, I just think it’s because of you.”

Robbe just gaped at this shameless flirting, receiving another wink when caught blushing deep pink. Sander seemed unfazed though, totally chill, like saying lame lines and winking at boys was in his everyday repertoire. It definitely wasn’t like that for Robbe, and definitely not from boys as cute as Sander.

He should have probably rolled his eyes at him, called him cocky and full of himself. And yet.

There was something about Sander’s demeanor that screamed it was all a facade, and that underneath there was a huge dork that came out right after that guard was let down. Robbe couldn’t even be annoyed with the smug winking because it was adorned with such a cute smile that it called for a fond eye roll rather than scoffing.

Before he could form at least a half cool response, Amber started shushing all of them with a bossy face, glaring at every person that dared to make a sound. So with a rush of sudden boldness, Robbe just squeezed Sander’s hand and looked at him from under his lashes, biting his lip in an attempt at being coy (and cringing at himself internally) despite his body thrumming with nerves standing this close to Sander, and for some unknown reason it brought the desired effect.

Sander kept smiling at him surreptitiously throughout the entire meeting, making him laugh with his playful faces at some of Amber’s more ridiculous statements, and it felt like they had an entire conversation even though they didn’t exchange one word during that half an hour.

When they were finally free to go home it was after 21, Robbe realized with a whine. After they all collected their things and were ready to leave, Sander turned around in the doorway, searching for Robbe’s eyes while ignoring the rest of their friends crowding against the door, and when Robbe glanced furtively into his direction his expression turned almost bashful as he said bye, Robin.

And then again with the winking.

Good god this boy.

And how cute it was he couldn’t actually wink? It looked more like a reinforced blinking, but he still looked cute doing it.

Once Robbe came back home that evening, thoughts occupied with bleached hair and the smell of leather jacket, he couldn’t stop himself from searching for Sander’s social media. In just one sitting he gathered a handful of information, finding out Sander was a year older and recently transferred to his school (which would explain how he had missed him in the corridors). He also had a photo with Amber down at the bottom of his profile and from the caption it seemed like they were cousins.

Robbe’s fingers hovered over the ‘follow’ button, but he didn’t want to seem like a stalker so he just closed the app, throwing his phone on his bed in exasperation feeling sorry for himself and his inexperience in talking to boys.

The universe decided to be graceful for him for once in his life though and put Sander on his path again only 3 days later.

Like every Saturday afternoon Robbe was in the skate park with the broers, taking piss of one another’s skills and trying out new tricks while basking in the October sun that felt more like it was full on spring rather than the beginning of fall. He was in the middle of showing off some of his best tricks to the sounds of his friends hollering when he caught sight of bleached hair in his peripheral, almost falling straight on his ass. But luck was on his side and he avoided making a spectacle out of himself.

Once he was safely on the ground, skateboard under his foot, he glanced in the direction of white hair one more time to see Sander lowering his vintage camera and whistling, making an impressed face and promptly causing Robbe to downcast his eyes bashfully.

“Hey.”

“Hey, Robin.”

Robbe sighed. “It’s Robbe.”

“I know, but isn’t that a cute nickname?”

Robbe ducked his head, smiling a little to himself, cursing the heat rising in his cheeks. “Are you always this annoying?”

For a moment, Sander seemed to be taken aback, but then he must have noticed the teasing glint in Robbe’s eyes because he relaxed visibly, confidence back on his face.

Then, easily and offhandedly, he said, “No, just with very certain people.”

If Robbe had any doubts before about Sander taking immense pleasure out of teasing him, he didn’t anymore. He was flashed with another mischievous smile and then Sander nodded at the bowl.

“That was pretty awesome.”

“Thanks.” Robbe scratched at the back of his neck self-conciously, ignoring his friends’ intrigued faces and praying they didn’t say anything stupid. “To be honest, these aren’t even that difficult, anybody could do them...”

“Pff, I tried this skateboarding thing once and let me tell you, I was an absolute disaster so don’t sell yourself short.” Sander nudged at his shoulder with a knowing look, the contact sending a shiver through Robbe’s entire body.

“So what are you doing here if you suck at it?” He sent him a toothy grin when Sander gaped at his brazen words, faux-scandalized.

He then lifted his camera swiftly and took a photo of Robbe’s dumbfounded face.

“I’m only around this deadly thing to take artsy pictures of cute boys.”

Looking very proud of himself, Sander laughed at his indignant spluttering, refusing to show Robbe the photo at first, giving in a few seconds later under his killer pout (Sander’s words).

“So, is this where you spend your afternoons?” he asked casually once they sat down at a nearby bench, Sander scrolling through his camera roll and showing him the photos.

Robbe nodded, watching Aaron from afar attempting the backside ollie and failing miserably. It pulled out a snort from Sander.

“Well, you’re definitely better at it than your friends.”

Elbowing him in the side as a sign of loyalty to his friends, he replied. “Jens is actually better than me.”

Sander sent him a curious look. “Is he your boyfriend?”

“What?! Eww, no! I have way better taste than that.” It’s not like he’d admit he had crushed on his best friend a year ago. So, hopefully, he sounded convincing.

Sander lifted his hands in surrender, laughing at his outburst. “Okay, okay, message received, only the cutest boys for you,” he paused, biting at his lip to hold his smirk. “Makes sense,” he muttered under his breath, but Robbe heard him anyway.

Later that day, he got a instagram notification that informed him that earthlingoddity was following him as of now and damn if that didn’t make Robbe’s heart beat faster.

earthlingoddity sent you a link

S: Considering today’s unfortunate incident, I made you a bowie playlist, need to teach the youngsters like you the real music 😎😏

The first message from Sander made him scoff, but he rolled his eyes at himself anyway when he remembered his conversation with him at the skatepark, asking about the shirt and prompting Sander to quiz him about David Bowie’s songs.

Robbe hid his face in his hands at the mere memory.

Space Cowboy.

How embarrassing.

Sander tried so hard not to burst out laughing at Robbe’s confusion when his answer was met with a blank stare, bless him.

R: So you're one of those people?

S: What people?

R: Self-righteous hipsters 😜

S: Now now Robin

No need for names 😩

R: It's Robbe

R o b b e

S: Okay Robin ;)

R: 🙄

Unbelievable

S: So

What's up? 🙃

They kept up at this casual texting for 2 recent weeks, getting to know each other, and Sander confirming that he does, in fact, have a soft side. Robbe also realized he was a much bolder person when no face to face interaction was required when he had more time before responding to Sander. Then there were the occasional “hellos” at school when they crossed paths in the halls, but so far their friendship, if he could even call it that, hadn’t evolved further.

In fact, this party was the first time Robbe had seen him in a week.

Their eyes met for a few short seconds and Robbe waved at him, immediately after wanting to bang his head at the table because who the fuck waves these days?

Sander didn’t seem to mind this dorky display at all, beaming at him from across the hallway and not paying much attention to Milan who was talking his ear off. A second later, he was out of Robbe’s sight, dragged by Milan and the girls to the living room, leaving him staring longingly after him.

Before Robbe got his shit together and on shaky legs went there to maybe squeeze out a few words to him, Moyo was already on his way of arranging people into a circle and producing a bottle to spin.

What a bad fucking timing.

This was so not Robbe’s idea of fun so he started to surreptitiously backing off to the hall to slide out the door but Jana, the traitor, grabbed his arm and sat him next to her, seeming very excited about the game.

It’s not like he was the only one reluctant to play though. Sander’s face looked rather bemused too.

“Come oooon, Sander,” Noor groaned at him, pulling at his sleeve relentlessly to make him plop his butt on her left side. “You promised to leave that sulky slash lovesick face at home and have fun. This is fun!”

“I think we have a different definition of fun, darling,” he retorted, his gaze sweeping through the half-drunk faces, stopping at Robbe’s for a millisecond. It was so quick he thought he imagined the apprehensive look on his face, but then Sander did sit down, letting out a long-suffering sigh and promptly avoided his gaze throughout the game. Which was clearly an intentional effort because they sat exactly opposite each other.

To say Robbe was confused would be an understatement.

And that’s how he finds himself here, sitting in a circle amongst his friends and several strangers who keep hollering and shoving tongues in each other’s throats. He had one close call when the bottle spinned by a redhead girl almost pointed at him, making him hold his breath but then stopping on Moyo sitting on his other side, who was way more eager to fill the deed.

When it’s finally Sander’s turn to spin the bottle, Robbe's heart starts beating double time and he twists his fingers nervously. He realizes with dread that there is no good outcome of this situation; if it lands on any of his friends or any of those few people he only vaguely recognizes, he’s going to have to watch Sander play tonsil tennis with them and his stomach turns unpleasantly with something akin to jealousy at the mere thought.

But if it lands on him?

Oh god.

The bottle is spinning already, Robbe having missed the moment Sander put it in motion, too busy wrangling with his thoughts about what he should do. The fact Sander has been avoiding his eyes ever since they started this stupid game makes him even more nervous about the whole thing.

Then the bottle stops, pointing at him so accurately that it leaves no room for question.

And Sander’s face positively falls.

Sitting near him Jens and Moyo are giving him subtle thumbs up and not so subtle shit-eating grins with Aaron next to them clearly confused at their behavior all the while Sander looks like he’s in pain.

Eyes glued to the floor, body rigid, looking like he’d want to be anywhere but here.

People are staring at them, waiting for something to happen and Robbe feels nauseous.

And so humiliated.

How could he misinterpret Sander’s behavior so much? And it’s not even that, not really. Does the idea of kissing him disgusts him that much he can’t even give him one stupid kiss to avoid putting Robbe on the spot?

From the corner of his eye he can see Noor elbowing Sander in the side and there’s an entire conversation happening between them without one word being uttered.

Then, several things happen at once. The boys let go of any subtlety and start whooping and hollering like they want to force Sander to make some kind of move, there’s a loud whack coming from the kitchen where one of the couples went to continue their PDA so Jana and Zoe get up to check the damage and then Adi, who has been rummaging through the liquor cabinet for the last ten minutes, yells that he found a ten year old whiskey, making the broers scrambling off the floor to get their hands on it.

The rest of the people are still here with them though. Still staring. And Sander still seems to be rooted to the spot.

And Robbe has had enough.

Ignoring Noor’s soft Robbe, he gets up and with a heavy heart almost runs to the door, putting his jacket on in a haste, frustration and shame cursing through his body as he runs down the stairs two step at a time, wanting to get outside as fast as he can.

The cold air washes over him once he reaches the entrance and he breaths in shakily, feeling his eyes welling up despite his hardest efforts not to cry.

It just hurts. It really hurts. And if he’s being honest with himself, the fact that there have been witnesses to his humiliation is a small part of the reason why he feels this way. It’s about the fact that it was Sander.

Sander. This boy who let him believe there may actually be someone interested in him. In that way. Sander, who flirted with him, complimented him, smiled at him, listened to him and sent him Bowie playlists.

Sander, who he felt more connected to recently than to any of his friends.

He wipes at his eyes angrily, scoffing at the fact that this asshole was able to make him cry, when he hears rushed steps on the sidewalk behind him.

“Robbe!”

Walking faster, he tries to ignore the sound until there’s a hand on his shoulder stopping him in his tracks. He turns around ready to blow out in Sander’s face but the boy is faster.

“I’m so sorry for that,” he pants, voice tinted with desperation, apologies written across his face as his eyes flit all over Robbe’s like he’s trying to read his mind.

But Robbe only lets out a humorless laugh. “No worries, I understand, you were very clear. Point taken,” he sneers, starting to walk again.

“No, you don’t understand,” Sander pleads with him, taking his hand in his own to keep him from leaving. Robbe wants to pull it back, but the distressed look in Sander’s eyes makes him hesitate. “I didn’t want our first kiss to be a part of some stupid game. Not when I spent weeks trying to come up with a perfect scenario for our first kiss in my head.”

Robbe promptly loses his breath at his confession.

“You wanted to kiss me before?”

“Ever since I saw you,” Sander confirms in a small voice. His demeanor lacks the confidence Robbe got acquainted with, ripped of any trace of the usual conckiness. Instead, Sander appears almost shy, biting his lip nervously as if waiting for a blow and heart-breaking rejection.

There won’t be a rejection though. Not tonight.

Without second-guessing himself, Robbe takes that one step that still separates them and seals their lips together, hands drifting to Sander’s rosy cheeks on their own, like there was a magnet pulling them in. Sander is stunned at first, his lips unresponsive, but it only takes about three seconds for his brain to catch up and then.

Then.

Then there’s Chernobyl in Robbe’s head.

Fuck.

The way this boy kisses.

Phew.

Robbe’s brain shuts off as Sander’s mouth moves over his with intention, sliding together in a rhythm that leaves him breathless. It’s almost impossible to keep all the noises that threaten to escape inside, one small whimper getting out without Robbe’s accord, but it’s okay because it gets swallowed by Sander’s unyielding lips right after it leaves Robbe’s, making Sander pull him even closer.

Eventually, they have to stop, getting dizzy from the lack of air. When their mouths do separate though it’s only for a centimeter and they keep panting in that small space between them, soon breaking out in quiet giggles.

“I've wanted to kiss you ever since I saw you too. Ever since that stupid meeting,” Robbe admits, feeling brave and like he’s floating on air, no confession scary enough right now. Sander looks very pleased with his words, and Robbe can feel the telltales of his regular confident smile coming back to his face under his lips when Sander pecks him softly.

Then, he draws back, regarding Robbe with eyes full of mischief.

“I only joined to meet you.”

That makes Robbe cock his brow in surprise and he searches his face for a lie or at least a joke, but he doesn’t find any. “You saw me before?”

There’s a pause and then Sander’s smile turns softer. “I saw you the first day of school.”

And, wow. He did not expect such a turn of events.

“You were sitting at a lunch table with your friends, deep in thought, looking so beautiful you took my breath away. It felt like I saw an angel.”

Blood floods Robbe’s cheek and he drops his eyes under Sander’s intense gaze, because he’s not used to such praise, or praise whatsoever. And then there’s Sander, looking at him like he’s something precious, like he hung the moon and stars, touching him so gently and kissing him so passionately and Robbe feels like passing out.

Sander must have sensed he was getting overwhelmed because he chuckles quietly and cradles his cheek in his palm, thumb sweeping under his eye in a soothing motion as he leaves a few small kisses on his other cheek, melting Robbe in a pile of goo right there on the sidewalk, quiet night around them.

Once he pulls himself together, he can’t resist the tugging at the corners of his mouth and a full-blown smile blooms on his face that’s instantly matched by Sander’s own.

“You know, I don’t think I ever played spin the bottle before but I’d give it zero stars on booking.com,” he declares suddenly pulling a laugh out of Robbe. “I was so scared I’m gonna have to watch you kiss somebody else, phew!” He places a hand on his chest comically, turning on the dramatics. “My poor heart wouldn’t take it, Robin!”

And fuck, he’s so cute that Robbe can only laugh at this (his?) dork, fondly rolling eyes at his antics.

“Yeah, I didn’t want anybody to kiss you either. And it’s Robbe,” he adds with a long-suffering sigh, futilely, he’s sure, but it’s still worth it because Sander’s cheek in tongue expression lets him know the boy loves to rile him up and is not going to stop anytime soon.

Still, to wipe off the smug smile for the time being he pulls him back into a kiss by the lapels of his leather jacket and Sander doesn’t exactly protest such. The second kiss is slower, more thorough, but still mind blowing enough for Robbe to feel heat tugging at his stomach.

“Will you go on a date with me? Tomorrow? Or any other time you’re free? Please?” Sander whispers in the small space between them after they finally break apart, foreheads resting against each other and fireworks going on in Robbe’s brain. Despite them standing so close Robbe can see Sander’s face pretty clear, and he can see his hopeful but tentative expression as he waits for him to answer, eyes growing unsure with each second of silence.

Not wanting to keep him in suspense anymore, he gives his parted lips one more lingering kiss, too weak to resist them when they shine so prettily in the street light above them. “Tomorrow sounds perfect.”

#wtfock #og easter eggs because it's cute af #😌

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cherry-toxic · 3 years ago

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Fic writer questions!

I was tagged by @introvertia - thank you so much :) Your answers were really interesting!

How many works do you have on AO3?

Only 8

What's your total AO3 wordcount?

141754

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Four: Beyblade (gen fics mostly), Shizaya (Durarara), Grimmichi (Bleach), and Harringrove (Stranger Things).

I usually sit in a fandom for a quite a while before I actually start writing anything. I'm amazed by those people who can get stuck in right away (how do you do it!?!)

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. end the fight; before the fight ends you

2. Bound to Happen

3. Year of You

4. Broken Boys and Butterflies

5. So come take a drink (And drown your sorrows)

All Harringrove aside from 'Bound to Happen' - which I'm rather surprised came in second because the Grimmichi fandom is waaaaay smaller than the Harringrove fandom.

'end the fight...' is also the only wip here. The rest are completed one-shots.

Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

Yes and no. It depends. I want to respond because comments really do mean a lot to me and I love rambling with people, but I have issues with online communication. Like, sometimes I write out a response and when I read it back to myself my brain just goes 'no that's terrible you sound like an idiot delete it now' and then I go 'yessir you're completely right how silly of me.'

When it comes to wips, I tend to reply to every comment when I'm getting ready to post the next chapter, that way it's like a little heads-up - new stuff incoming soon!

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending?

Y'know as much as I love angst I actually prefer to have my fics end on a relatively positive note (angst with a happy ending is my shit).

But I suppose 'So come take a drink (And drown your sorrows)' is overall pretty angsty and I left the ending open so if I ever felt like continuing it I could do so easily.

Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you've ever written?

Big nah. Kind of like AU fics, they just don't interest me that much.

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Yes, but it came from someone who was just making the rounds on a bunch of Harringrove fics and they were highly suspected to be an anti so it didn't really bother me that much because I knew they were trolling.

I've had a few like, vague comments/back-handed compliments that got under my skin a bit though.

Do you write smut? If so what kind?

Yes, occasionally I do. Generally I'd say I'm pretty vanilla, but I am currently writing an a/b/o fic, though I think it might go under non-traditional a/b/o because, again, vanilla lol

My smut usually comes with a lot of introspection, like they'll be doing the deed and one of them will be internally streaming a 5000+ word monologue (I do this with Grimmjow sometimes because he's a big virgin who views sex as silly human nonsense).

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Parts of a fic, yes. I came across this fic that was clearly plagiarizing from several different authors (they forgot to change the characters names and everything) and I found entire paragraphs that were copy/pasted straight from one of my fics.

The thing is, this was over 10 years ago, something I wrote when I was... seventeen, maybe? So... I don't get why they copied it because it was pretty bad to be honest...

Have you ever had a fic translated?

Yes, an old one called '10 Miles in Your Shoes' (beyblade) although it was never completed because well, firstly, I never completed the original, and secondly, when the translator asked me how long I was planning on it being I said around 20-30k and uhhh... lets just say I overshot that by a mile!

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No. While I think it would be interesting to try I honestly don't know if I could give up control like that!

What’s your all time favorite ship?

Hard to say because I tend to go for characters over ships. Like, I got into Grimmichi because of Grimmjow and Harringrove because of Billy.

But since Grimmjow is my all-time favourite character then, I guess Grimmichi, but Harringrove is definitely a close second because the fandom has spoiled me rotten with all their amazing fics (in terms of reading material, Harringrove is my fav).

What’s a WIP that you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

'10 Miles in Your Shoes' - the bodyswap fic.

It's been a long time since I engaged with anything related to beyblade but I have a lot of fondness for this fic because it was the second I ever started writing and it was the fic that allowed me to truly grow as a writer. There's a huge improvement from the first to the most recent chapter (most recent being 5 years ago...) to the point where it looks like it could have been written by two different people, and I received so much positive feedback and encouragement throughout those years. I wish I had it in me to go back and finish it off but I struggle enough while writing for my current obsessions so it's looking more and more unlikely...

At the very least, I think I might transfer it to AO3 since ff.net seems to be slowly going under. Even if I never complete it, I don't want it lost forever.

What are your writing strengths?

This might sound ridiculous but I don't know? I always feel like I'm winging everything!!

I guess. One thing I've been complimented on a lot is my ability to portray messy (for lack of a better word) situations in a realistic way. I've been asked a few times if I've ever studied psychology and -

Nope

Just winging it!

What are your writing weakness?

EDITING!!!

I really should get a beta because I miss so many stupid little mistakes, like - okay - I always used to write in past tense, it was never something I even thought about, past tense was just the default. And then suddenly, around 2017/18, I began transitioning to present tense completely unconsciously and now every time I re-read 'Bound to Happen' I get angry because I bounced between tenses all the way through that fic and I didn't even notice until a year after I posted it.

Also. Incredibly slow. Lack of consistency. Perfectionist until I get stuck and then I feel like you can spot exactly where I lost momentum. Utterly hopeless when it comes to descriptions of setting/scenery. I don't think I'm very good at building atmosphere either. Dialogue, although I am improving at that.

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I can't say I really have any thoughts on this? I don't do it much myself.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for?

Beeeeyblaaade! I was fifteen when I wrote my very first fic (now deleted because it was awful!)

What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Oh god, this is hard!

If we're talking completed fics only, then probably 'Year of You'. That was my I-Do-Not-Accept-Billy's-Death fic but I WILL take all of the angst material from S3 and ride it hard.

If we're including wips, then both 'end the fight...' and 'metamorphosis' are probably my favourites right now.

'End the fight...' is my BIG Billy redemption fic which I started plotting out not long after S2 and there's so many scenes I'm looking forward to writing (yeah I know its been a while since i last updated but the past year has been rough okay)

'Metamorphosis' is the a/b/o fic which I was kind of nervous about at first because its not a trope that i read a lot of but i'm enjoying how its turning out so far!

Whew! That was a lot!

I'm tagging: firstly, whoever wants to do it because I like reading about peoples writing experiences (make sure to tag me!) And then: @shadowthorne @bentnotbroken1fanfiction @callieb @backwardshirt @memes-saved-me @murderlight @magniloquent-raven @aeon-of-neon @louhetar

#tag game #fanfiction #my fics #grimmichi #harringrove

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imlostinsantacarla · 4 years ago

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anon: Dampyr thing for all of them please. If it's not too much trouble? You can write it however you want. Either preferences/would include or whatever is fine by me. Sorry for late reply. Dampyr is from old balkan folklore. My grandma from Serbia used to tell me the stories. It was long time ago so I'm kinda rusty on the details. Basicly, they are half-vampires. They weren't turned, but born that way from human mom and vamp dad. Unlike other half-vamps they look like human but age extremly slow and heal faster. They can't be hypnotized(sorry David your little noodle trick won't work) and their blood is leathal for vampires. They can drink vampire blood and absorb their knowledge.

(a/n: to the anon that requested this! i’m sorry that it’s taken so long to post this and i’m also so sorry that i lost your original request. i’ve worked so hard on this and it took me even longer to complete only bc when i was editing the draft of this piece tumblr didn’t save it so all of my previous hard work was gone. i hope you enjoy these! thanks so much for requesting! - admin kat 🌙❣)

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

The Lost Boys Dating a Damphyr!Reader Headcanons:

David:

° David is quite the nonchalant lad of the bunch, however, even he has difficulty in denying the fact that you intrigue him exponentially. So, it’s safe to assume that this Lost Boy is littered with curiosity over your skills and abilities.

° One thing that David prides himself immensely on is his knack for compulsion. It’s always been his forte, even in the early days of being an immortal being of the night.

° He also made you very aware with how displeased he was when he found out that mental tricks did not work on you. He moped about for a solid week and a half because compulsion is one of the few things in his existence that quenches his constant boredom. Taking that away from him throws everything off balance in his books.

° My boii sincerely attempted to play mind tricks on you from the very start and you certainly were having none of it. But then again, David should be ecstatic because this means that mentally you are in little danger to the tricks and trades of mental attacks.

° It also caused him to begin to ponder about what really was going through your mind most of the time. It almost gave you an air of mystery which he honestly preferred. It made you more challenging to read and less likely to submit. David is always up for a challenge after all.

° David will not lie either, he finds it intensely attractive when you drink from him. He get’s drunk off of the euphoria, your lips pressed to his wrist... The sight is enough to turn him on. I also imagine that vampires (particularly mates) drinking each other’s blood is rather intimate, and by allowing you to drink from him, it shows a more vulnerable side to David. It shows that he trusts you with his life. After all, you are more than capable of sucking him dry if you allowed your impulses to cloud your vision.

° In the heat of the moment, David’s logic is thrown behind a mist of lust and desire. He get’s quite carried away and soon you find his teeth nipping at your neck whilst you straddle him, his fangs pinching the delicate skin wondrously. Your heart flutters it’s blood beneath the surface. If he just sinks his teeth into you he’ll-

° This is where you pull back, breaking all contact and denying him everything that he wants. With a huffing sigh he flops back into the dusty old couch that is situated in the cave, blue eyes pulsing electric. How could you deny him this?

° You mumble a soft reminder, eyes not meeting his piercing gaze. He isn’t able to drink your blood because if he does, he would be no more. This is something that almost enrages him. Why did his mate have to have such an immense drawback? You’ve totally thrown the balance out of his desires.

° “Well, sunshine, aren’t you a little bit morbid.” Acrimony darts from his mouth, followed by a whirl of cigarette smoke. He tilts his head back, bleach blonde hair in disarray from your previous fiasco. His large calloused hands grasp your waist, pulling you closer to his being. He was taunting you. Taunting you for refusing him what he wanted.

° “I won’t be morbid when you’re foaming at the mouth.” You tilt your head to the side, eyes finding his oceanic ones. You were now challenging him, reminding him of what could happen if he allowed himself to grow careless with you. You only meant it well, but David never enjoyed being told what to do.

° “Yeah, yeah, point taken, princess.” He simpers up at you, that smoke wedged between his kissable lips. You pluck it from his mouth and stub the damn thing out before capturing his lips with yours with a hungry fire only he created in you. You had no problem with allowing him to get lost in you once more, only for you to playfully deny him his greatest wish. This was always about control... and you were the one in charge.

° Initially David mocks you about this. Why are you denying him? Are you worried for his safety? Please! He can handle himself, darling.

° But nevertheless, he’s not actually dumb enough to risk it... just in case.

° And it isn’t until one particular night that you miraculously managed to get out of both eye and ear shot from David. Another vampire had unwisely entered Santa Carla and attacked you. David had managed to get there just in time to witness the vampire drinking from you, along with the treacherous torture the vampire ensued as a result of it’s own foolish mistake.

° You healed rather quickly and effortlessly from it, yet you remained seated on the floor, panting wildly. Terror fluctuated through your body, your limbs vibrated in anxiety. It took a few moments for you to soothe yourself. What helped you calm down was discussing why that vampire was dead. You see, the rate in which a vampire dies after consuming your blood matters greatly on the amount it has taken in. If it has drank more then it will die quicker and with less in it’s system it will die slowly. Both ways are excruciating.

° And for the first time in his entire immortal existence, David experienced the heebie jeebies. He hadn’t even had time to pull the vampire from you prior to it dying on the spot. The memories were a vivid ordeal that continued to play behind his eyes.

° But was he scared out of his mind? Well, Paul definitely thought so!

° “Well, I guess you weren’t fooling around with the lethal part, princess.” David wedged a smoke between his lips and lit it, the glowing amber in the dark alleyway the only light. The way David had uttered the statement seemed almost mocking. Just like him. You knew he was only covering up the cluster of emotions underneath the surface.

° “Yeah, no kidding.” You muttered bitterly, a roll of your eyes causing your blonde boyfriend to chortle under his breath.

° “And I was also right about something else, y/n. The whole experience is definitely morbid.” He concluded, his gloved palm finding yours in the darkness to hoist you up onto your feet and into his protective embrace. He’d be damned if he allowed anything like this to happen again.

° David is quite known for his protectiveness over the people and things that he holds dearest to him. He also has a possessive streak that is unrivaled by any of the other boys. That vampire attacking you only caused him to hover closer to you when he could, a relaxed arm draped over your shoulders, hands placed firmly on your waist... you name it! There was a primal instinct in him that made him feel slightly perplexed. He wanted you all to himself and he wasn’t going to allow anyone else to take you away from him.

° As stated above, this blonde bad boy is possessive and high-key selfish. He only desires to have your entire attention focused on him. He also feels that it’s his job to keep you safe, but that can be hard when it’s the day time.

° “Well, well, well, how’s my special vampire doing today?” David would smirk in your ear, rough voice husky as he chortled. His teeth scraped tenderly against the shell of your ear, his cool breath fanning against the delicate skin of you neck, eliciting a deep shiver from your being. He was surely satisfied with that.

° “Would you stop calling me that, David? I’m not even a real vampire.” You’d roll your eyes in an exaggerated motion, shaking your head softly whilst you attempted to mask the smile that began to spread across your countenance.

° “Not until hell freezes over, dear.” He’d grin triumphantly in your ear.

° “Urgh!”

° At times David will attempt to still perform compulsion on you which he only does to get under your skin. As a result, all it really does is cause you and the boys to fall into bouts of intense laughter.

° “You sure it doesn’t work, love?”

° “Yeah, I think with hundreds of failed attempts you’d have realized that for yourself, babe.”

° “Alright, if you say so.”

° It’s also a known fact that David has no regard for human life whatsoever, and along with Paul, he really isn’t overwhelmed with joy when you sustain yourself on human food. Since you were brought up to be human, it’s quite difficult for you to let go of your human moral compass. The human part of you tells you not to harm humans. But David also see’s that as a challenge.

° David really wants you to feed from humans because logically vampires are far stronger when they do. So that obviously applies to your kind, right? Well, not so much. See, a full vampire needs to hunt and feed every night to curb the intense thirst that they feel. You do not. You’re able to go with longer periods of time without blood and sustain yourself of human food, even if it makes you less strong. So it takes a little while for David to realize that. It also takes him some time to understand that your ability to blend in as a human makes it particularly difficult for hunters to figure out what you are. Very smart.

° Going on hunts with David are bonding experiences. Before him you hadn’t ever hunted. You had stolen blood bags from the hospitals and blood drives, which had quenched your craving for it. So to begin with you were very awkward when feeding. David needed to show you the ropes, had to teach you to relax and let your instincts kick in.

° Although you are a half vampire, you are very different from Star, Laddie and Michael. You were born one, which actually sets you apart from the other non-born vampires. Like you are capable of walking in the sun without it making you feel weary and exhausted (this is due to you having been exposed to it your entire life, which almost created some form of immunity to it because your mother shunned the other part of you, conditioning you to be more human than vampire).

° To find out that absorb his knowledge when you feed from him makes him very intrigued to say the least. As David is possessive, he won’t allow you to feed from any other vampire. He’s caught off guard when you tell him about memories, etc. that you have absorbed from him.

° As pay back for all the mocking he does to you, you’re kind of an ass about it all. You tend to bust out terribly embarrassing memories from long ago that the boys never let him live down. Now that they’ve resurfaced, David isn’t too keen about it. Cue him then being a grumbling and pouting mess about it for awhile after. I mean, you basically roasted him in front of his boys so of course he’s feeling sensitive afterwards. But that sorta stuff doesn’t go unpunished, my lovely.

° It’s definitely a given that David would halt any and all of the rude things the other boys may say about you. He won’t tolerate any of it. Not even a funny look will be cast upon you.

° You have to understand though that things have been challenging with Star, especially since she rejected their life style. The boys find it hard to trust newcomers because of that but also due to their pasts as humans. But with that said, he’ll still harmlessly tease you. Harmless teasing from the boys is also alright. Though as soon as it begins to upset you, that’s when he’ll shut it down instantaneously.

° David is also certainly watchful over you when hunters are around. Those are the moments in which he will not allow you to leave the cave in the day time. If you’re going out, it’ll be at nighttime with him and the boys. His worst nightmare is you dying or getting hurt. He’s literally the most dramatic of the bunch. You sometimes think he’s just being a control freak, but usually something will happen that’ll make you realize that he’s only trying to keep you safe.

° Yes, you may heal quite swiftly, but he’s really certain that you won’t come bounding back from a stake to the heart.

° In the bedroom department, David is very dominant. He’s in charge and despite what others may think he is a rather passionate lover. The fact that you’re a Damphyr allows him to ease up a bit. Since you’re more durable than a human he can ease up and just enjoy the experience. He totally uses his super strength and speed, you don’t complain either.

° David is low-key a nerd and researches the legends and myths of hybrid vampires, Damphyr’s, etc. in every country. Sometimes he’ll put your skills to the test and you bet your backside that he’s all smug about it (especially when you can’t do something). Your mate is kind of an ass not gonna lie.

Dwayne:

° Dwayne’s interest is undeniably peeked when he figures out that you’re a Damphyr. Now there’s even a sliver of something that you both have in common. You’re both vampires, - well you’re half of one -. Sincerely, he finds you so mesmerizing. He’s only ever heard of vague and patchy legends of your kind that are more like myths.

° But hey! It gives him the courage to peek out of his shell a little more and begin talking with you. You both hit it off instantaneously and it all just blossoms from there.

° Although you may heal quite swiftly and possess more strength than a human, Dwayne cannot resist it when his protective and watchful nature kicks in. So you better be prepared for him to still be a meat wall that always slots itself in between you and any possible threat.

° He’s very aware of the fact that you can fend for yourself, he has no doubt in your abilities, I promise you that. Being vigilant of those that he loves is something that comes quite naturally to Dwayne, - he’s even protective of his fellow Lost Boys -. Consider it to be a good thing that he wants to keep you safe.

° He allows you to drink from him whenever you may feel the urge to, but he’s not like David where he’ll hound you about it. Dwayne is rather relaxed and knows you can’t live off of him because A) You’d kill him. And B) You need something else for sustenance too.

° Hunting with Dwayne has now become the normal thing. Primarily it was peculiar for you as you had never fed with another vampire around. You had always kept that to your lonesome. So during your first ten feedings he would accidentally make too hasty of a movement, which would kick start this primal instinct in you to fight him for your meal and territory. But you’re forgetting that Santa Carla is his territory.

° It’s a blessing that Dwayne is so grounded and relaxing, because he was able to defuse the tension and anxiety you felt in those moments. He’d reassure you that he wasn’t there to steal your meals or to harm you. He was doing this to help you for when you hunted with him and the boys. But if it proved far too overwhelming for you, he would give you your space when you hunted because he totally empathized with you.

° Out of all the Lost Boys he is the most chill and relaxed when it comes to you living out more as a human. Dwayne is very appeasing. His energy helps even Paul stay rooted down in the present moment. But that doesn’t stop him from being a wild one! But nevertheless, he’s very tolerant of your human nature coming into play in everyday life. It doesn’t bug him in the slightest.

° In fact, he encourages it! Dwayne doesn’t see the point in trying to get you to suppress a part of you that is totally natural to your being. In all honesty, he thoroughly enjoys the simplicity of sitting on the counter tops in your kitchen and watching you cook yourself a home cooked meal. He’ll even sample some of it and tell you what he thinks. Although he’s really not a fan of when you use garlic!

° So since you’re a born half vampire, Dwayne really does comprehend that you don’t just require or need blood in order to keep yourself and your hunger fulfilled. There’s honestly no pressure on his part for you to have to feed on human blood. You could even drink animal blood and he wouldn’t even bat an eyelash!

° Though the more human blood you consume the stronger you are. Yet you’ll never be as strong as a full vampire, and Dwayne totally get’s that.

° Dwayne is the biggest softie known to man because he loves listening to your heartbeat! And in my opinion, I think that it would run a tad bit slower than an actual humans heartbeat. Just the sound of it makes him grin so wide that it’s as though the sun is beaming brightly across his face! Urgh i’m dying!

° This raven haired boy is really known for not taking anyone’s bullshit and when it comes to you? He’s not going to stand for anybody disrespecting you. This is regardless of whether it’s the boys or not and in any context. He will not let anybody push you around.

° And again, within regards to the boys, Dwayne will shut their shit down pronto! Rude comments, nasty looks, you name it! None of it is tolerated in his books.

° And you best believe he’s flattened Paul at least once for saying something dumb about you.

° Much like David, Dwayne wishes to know more about your kind and will secretly research it. He get’s pretty abashed when you know that he does. The boys tease him a lot for it, especially in front of you, but you swear it’s adorable.

° Every once in awhile he will tell you facts he’s read up on or heard about in regards to your kind. He likes it when you debunk whether that’s a myth or not, and there’s even a lot that you still don’t know.

° “Hey, I uh- I heard your kind tend to become hunters of vampires, well, your kind mainly hunts your fathers because your fathers are the vampires.” He’d pipe up from beside you softly, his orbs landing on everything else but you. If he wasn’t dead you swore he would be blushing bright red by now.

° “Where did you learn that?” You’d bat your lashes at him, almost stunned he’d heard about that.

° “Nowhere, just heard it around.” Dwayne would smile softly, his deep eyes peeking at your face as he rubbed the rear of his neck sheepishly.

° “If you’re asking me whether I’m a vampire hunter or not, then fortunately for you the answer is no.” You’d grin up at him. That was a relief for him.

° Since he’s a vampire, Dwayne doesn’t tend to regard human life all that highly because to him and the boys, humans primary source to them is being prey, nothing more. However, since you are part human, he’s more tolerable of humans and their nature, even if it can a little confusing for him to figure out.

° Yes, I’m aware that he too was once human round about 80 years ago, but I like to imagines that as the years have stretched on his human nature has dwindled into nothing. Vampire morals are much different from human morals. He’s also dead and hunters consider him to be soulless now.

° Due to Dwayne’s vigilant nature, he is always apprehensive whenever you do get hurt, - even the thought of you being injured or killed sends him into an internal panic! He knows that you can heal quite impressively, yet it never stops him from experiencing worry over you. He cares about you after all.

° For all he knows, there could be some sort of poison out there that could kill you instantly!

° It’s a scarce occurrence for Dwayne to fill you in on his fears and anxieties (big or small). Dwayne is particularly physically strong and at times he feels like he needs to keep up a guard, like he’s holding all the pieces together. So even though he doesn’t directly tell you these worries, he still feels these said cluster-fuck of emotions. This can be quite challenging for him to digest, so some patience is needed on your behalf.

° Consistently this occurs because you have been though and he requires a lot of comforting from you, along with reassurances that you are alright.

° And afterwards, he is at your side as much as physically possible. It may feel a bit smothering but please do remember that Dwayne once had a brother named Jasper whom he lost a long time ago. You are now one of the only people that he has left that he loves and cares about.

° Compulsion isn’t Dwayne’s forte really; he’s never been good at it anyway. That’s more David’s style and the raven haired vampire is okay with it. However, he is intrigued about it not having an affect on you. He’s a huge advocate for your own free will and would never screw around with it.

° He is also incredibly relieved that hypnotization doesn’t work on you because David can get carried away with those sorts of things. You’re mentally protected which means one less thing for Dwayne to fret over.

° You’ve also got a lot more stamina than the average human (as does Dwayne) so there are plenty more rounds when it comes to the bedroom side of things, which he’s really into. ;)

° Dwayne is a very passionate lover whom enjoys taking his time in worshiping your body. Your added stamina means you can go for hours, which is just the way he prefers things.

° At times he does forget that you are only part vampire until something occurs that reminds him of it.

° He contemplates about the little things that you do when he’s not around or just in general. Do you hanging sleep upside down from the ceiling like him and the boys? Does garlic irritate you as much as it does the full vampires? Do you sleep through the day just like them? It’s honestly seriously adorable.

° Despite having a quiet nature, Dwayne will ask you a lot of questions, though he’s got an incredibly amazing knack for spreading them out so as to not cause you to feel bombarded or overwhelmed by his curiosity.

° Also Dwayne is really a phenomenal listener. He just loves the sound of your voice and could listen to it for hours!

° Dwayne has never seen firsthand what happens to vampires when they drink from your kind and he’s not bagged on the idea on finding out or even daring to try it out for himself. He’s ballsy but not that ballsy! As soon as you told him he took your word for it.

° Genuinely though Dwayne does take a lot of what you say as the truth. You’re the one who’s experiencing it. Every Damphyr is different just like every vampire, werewolf, human, etc.

° You’ve also become apart of the boys family, which surprisingly enough, Max allowed. So all in all, Dwayne is intensely ecstatic that he get’s to spend a lot time with you.

° He is aware that you age far slower than a human which is a relief to him. It’s just a little unknown to either of you on whether you will pass away one day as the legends are all conflicting. Even you are unsure about it. You boy try not to dwell on it all that much because then things become depressing.

° And that’s another worry of his. You dying. He genuinely just wants to spend forever with you. Poor baby.

° Dwayne is literally the best boyfriend ever tbh. My heart m e l t s just thinking about it!

Paul:

° Paul has never shut up once in his whole entire life, so it’s safe to say that he won’t be shutting his mouth when it comes to you either. I mean that in the sense of him inquiring a lot about you. This is totally expected at this point, and in all honesty, half of them don’t even make any sense, - particularly if he’s high or drunk -.

° “So you can run really fast right?”

° “Well, faster than a human.”

° “Does that mean you’re like the flash then, doll?”

° Give the poor boy a break though, he really is trying here!

° And funnily enough, Paul is without a doubt convinced that you’ve got some sort of super power that you’re not showing anyone. You think that this is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard in your entire life. But Paul? Nah, he won’t relent until you show him. Even the boys join in on the teasing.

° “I dunno, dollface. I really think you’re hiding something. C’mon! It’s me and the boys. There’re no humans around.” He’d grin that perfect heart melting smirk at you. “We won’t blow her cover will we boys?”

° “He’s right, y/n! We won’t tell anyone.” Marko would call from across the cave, causing you to roll your eyes.

° “The only thing I’m hiding from you guys right now is my fist from your faces!” You’d shout back, attempting to hide the grin spreading across your face. You did a poor job of it.

° “Now you’re definitely hiding something! I can see you grinning like you’re sneaky, babe, but you’re not. I swear, I’m onto you.”

° “Have you been sniffing news print or something?”

° “Awe, c’mon, babe! Just show me already!”

° Although Paul isn’t very gifted in using compulsion, he was one of the few boys that was a bit bummed out when he found out it didn’t work on you. But really he knows it’s a good thing because it leaves you less vulnerable to mental attacks from anyone. That’s one less thing for him to worry about when it comes to your safety.

° Hunting with Paul is a nightly date. In fact, he encourages you to feed because he wants you to be as strong as you possibly can be. He’s just worried about you getting hurt when he isn’t around. It also takes awhile for him to understand that you don’t need so much blood to stay sustained.

° He is also the chillest out of all the boys when it comes to you feeding from other vampires. Sure, he likes it when you feed from him, but he won’t be mad if you have the urge to feed and get your fill from another vampire. That sort of stuff just doesn’t really ruffle Paul’s feathers.

° And besides, that gift can come in handy for him and the boys. You absorb knowledge from other vampires, which means black mail! Every vampire has some sort of dirty laundry or terrible baggage that they don’t want anyone else to know.

° With that said, he really wants you to feed from Max because he’s an asshole and such a terrible ‘father’. Paul really wants to know all the man’s dirty secrets and to use them against him. Which is when David has to step in and remind him that Max is much older and stronger than them all combined and if you did that to him, Max would kill you instantly. But it doesn’t stop him from wanting you to do it.

° He is second on the scale (next to David) when it comes to his displeasure towards your human self. Human life is very boring to him. Yes, he once was a human a long time ago, but he’s been there and done that already. He’s also lost touch with his humanity and it will never return. So, in conclusion to this point, he’s more adamant that you feed from humans instead of gaining sustenance from human food.

° Hunting with you is such a huge turn on for him. Afterwards you should expect without a doubt that he’ll either bring you back to your place, the cave or tuck you into a dark alleyway and have his way with you. Just seeing you drink from people and letting your inner vampire out is genuinely the sexiest thing this boy has ever seen!

° Poor boy tends to forget that he’s a vampire, so the fact that you’re more durable is better because he’d break an actual human in half by accident just by nonchalantly hitting them playfully on the back. He actually did that once and he panicked for a good two minutes. Marko had to help him bury the body.

° “I swear I didn’t mean it, man!”

° “Paul, you literally kill people on a nightly basis. Stop panicking!”

° “Oh yeah.”

° This boy loves to play fight and it’s on a c o n s t a n t basis with you. He doesn’t go easy on you either, he either wins or won’t play fight at all. There’s no in between with this vampire.

° You best believe that Paul has at least attempted to drink your blood once! You certainly did stop him because it’s an obviously big no, no! It’s lethal for his kind to drink your kinds blood, and you love Paul a lot, so you want him to be alive.

° When you reminded him of this predicament he just laughed in your face and said it’d be worth it.

° “C’mon, babe! I let you drink from me...” He’d pout miserably at you, baby blue eyes swelling in size. You hated it when he pulled those puppy dog eyes on you.

° “Do you want to die in the most painful of ways?” You’d arch your brow comically at him with a soft tilt of your head.

° “No, not really.”

° “Then you’re not drinking from me, Paul.” You’d hum softly against his lips, fingers already tangling in his blonde mane.

° And as if on cue, he’s the biggest pouting baby you have ever encountered for the next week or two. Honestly, this boy is so dramatic when he doesn’t get his way! However, you make it up to him by going hunting with him twice in one night. That helps him forget all about not being able to drink from you.

° And then one night down the line he witnesses firsthand what happens to vampires when they drink from you. Let’s just say the poor blonde is totally traumatized from the whole experience. He needed that good green stuff to forget at least a fraction of the agony that other vampire went through.

° “Thank God I had the brains not to feed from you. Jesus, babe! Who knew you were such a savage.” He’d ramble with a cigarette wedged anxiously between his lips.

° “Brains? I literally had to push you off of me, Paul.” You’d grin widely, shaking your head in disbelief.

° “Yeah, yeah!” He’d wave off your comment, taking a deep drag on his smoke. “But did you see the blood come out of his eyes? What a sorry loser!”

° Whenever he’s mad at the other boys he tells them to go drink from you as an insult lmaoo. I’m not even kidding.

° Even though he’s very goofy, Paul is pretty serious about you though. Everything to do with you he’s fascinated about, even if it seems a little weird. It’s just because you make him so happy. Honest, he’s just a big ball of sweetness when it comes to you.

° He’s not a researcher, so why would he start now? He knows that you’ll just tell him what he’s right and wrong about and all the details in between. Sometimes he listens pretty intently, but other times he doesn’t because he becomes distracted by your boobs or starts thinking about how pretty your lips are and how much he really wants to kiss them. He doesn’t mean it in a bad way though, you’re just the biggest distraction for him.

° This guy is a genuine horndog™ and will be on you 25/7. The boy is the most touch orientated fellow out there, it’s honestly unreal! But you don’t complain because you love it when his hands are all over you.

° Still to this day your family doesn’t understand why you moved into the hotel that fell into the caves in the cliffs. Like seriously? That place doesn’t even have a working bathroom! But you moved in anyway, and pretty much you’ve stayed there out of defiance against your family now. None of the boys bring it up any more because you just go off on a tangent about it.

° “Can you turn people into vampires?”

° “Do you feel anything since you ate that piece of garlic bread 3 hours ago?”

° “Do you sleep upside down hanging from your ceiling?”

° “Can you walk in the sun without bursting into flames?”

° “So like when your parents did it, did-”

° “I’m not talking about my parents doing it, Paul.”

° “But babe! It’s for science!”

° Paul is just as goofy with you as he would be with a full vampire or human mate too be honest. Nothing changes in that department.

° High-key thinks you’re a badass and will not shut up about it to the other boys. David has put a ban on any mention of you or your name from Paul when you’re not around. Honestly, it drives David mad!

° Although Paul doesn’t take much seriously, he still freaks out in a pretty gnarly context whenever you do get hurt. Paul is the most emotionally reactive out of the boys (as seen when Marko was killed and he went directly after the Frog Brothers). You can bet your pretty backside that he’s taking anyone down swinging, violently. Definitely violently!

° “Dwayne told me your kind become vampire hunters. Does that mean you’re one?”

° “No, but if Dwayne doesn’t pipe the fuck down about it I will be.”

° That literally made David laugh so hard he had tears streaming down his face. You’re really bold for saying that. Even David wouldn’t have said that about Dwayne with Dwayne literally sitting opposite of him. But you did. So rip to David but you’re different.

° “I hope you live for forever, babe. I don’t think I could live without you.”

° "Awe, Paul!”

Marko:

° Akin to the other boys, Marko is incredibly curious about you. Besides Paul, he is the most intrigued when it comes to you and your abilities. He hasn’t ever met a Damphy in his entire existence and he never knew they existed... until you came stumbling into his life.

° The pair of you feed together whenever you get the chance to. Hunting with the other boys causes you to draw into yourself. It’s an intimate thing for you to share with someone which Marko completely understands. It’s no biggie!

° So you’re a little feeding shy? Marko isn’t bothered by it. He enjoys hunting with you, because a couple that hunts together stays together, am I right?

° Much like David and Paul, Marko just assumes that you’re pulling his leg when you tell him if he feeds from you he’ll die. You have to go into a deeper depiction on how your kind usually hunts vampires (especially your fathers as they are typically the vampires) so your blood is built to be poisonous to full vampires, it’s aroma as sweet as honey in order to lure them in like the sorry flies that they are.

° This news doesn’t really phase Marko in the slightest. He thinks it’s gnarly that your blood can do that to a full vampire. David thinks he’s insane, but Marko loves anything weird and quirky, especially gruesome. He’s a horror fanatic in my eyes!

° Although he’s the smallest out of the entire group, doesn’t mean that he doesn’t possess an intelligent mind. He believes that if what you’re saying it the truth and only but the truth then he’s not stupid enough to risk it. He quite enjoys sleeping all day and partying all night, thank you very much!

° Marko would be nothing more than a fibber if he said that you feeding from him turns him on. Like David, he uses it as a way to strengthen the bond between you. He’s mindful during the whole experience to not let his desires take hold and bite you. He’s looking to enjoy the passionate ride you two are involved in, not die a premature death.

° Unbeknownst to most, Marko has a rather possessive streak when it comes to you. What’s his is his and he doesn’t really like to share. This causes him to receive a cornucopia of teasing from the boys, but he doesn’t really care. He’s the one with a hot Damphyr mate. In his eyes he’s already won.

° Following his vampiric nature, Marko doesn’t care all too much for human life and it’s fragile nature. I mean, because you’re a born half-ling, he’s got to deal with your human nature that runs just as strongly in you as the vampiric nature. The two often collide with one another, creating a deep rooted sense of conflict within you that is really difficult for Marko to watch. You actually feel guilt for the victims you feed from, which took awhile for him to get used to.

° After all, you need to feed to live. So why do you need to add guilt into the mix? The other boys don’t get it either, they tease you about it, but once they begin to see the actual effect consistently killing does to you, they snag a lot of blood bags because you’re not actually killing anyone any more. Just chill out.

° Marko is a hard nut to crack. I mean that in the sense in which he hardly let’s on what he’s thinking and feeling in any given moment. It takes years of knowing him to understand him. But one thing that is totally apparent is his protectiveness over you. He would without a doubt die for you, no questions asked. If it meant that you lived, he’s willing to sacrifice himself.

° “Listen, babe,” Marko murmured into the darkness of the hotel, his voice quiet as he leaned against one of the crumbling cave walls, “I know you’re capable and all of taking care of yourself. But like, can you stay here tonight? The boys and I got word there were hunters in town. I’d hate to see anything happen to you, you know?”

° Marko will defend you till his last breath! Ya boii will fight for your honor at the drop of a hat. Surf Nazis, the other boys, a random kid looking at you funny, you name it! He’s prepared to fight anyone anywhere!

° “Hey asshole! Mind waiting in line like a normal person instead of cutting in front of my girl like that?”

° “Marko!”

° “What, babe? I asked nicely.”

° Marko is the biggest sweetheart nonetheless and it’s a ritual that he gives you his jacket whenever you get cold. The s o f t vibes that flood off of him makes your knees goes weak. You’re such a sucker for sweet Marko.

° “I swear to God, you touch my girl again and I’ll rip your hands off, buddy!”

° “What’d you say to her you asshole?”

° “You say that again and I’ll rip your tongue right out of your head.”

° The amount of times him and the boys have been kicked off of the Board Walk because Marko got into a brawl over you is well over the hundreds by now. You seriously don’t feel like there’s a need for him being so protective because you’re stronger than most mortal men and women, you can kick ass on your own.

° If you blabber a lot in order to tell him about yourself he just grins his infamous Cheshire grin and kisses your lips softly to shut you up.

° “Was I rambling again?”

° “Just a little.”

° “Sorry!”

° “It’s all cool, babe. I love it.”

° When you educate him on your kind he thinks it’s the most adorable thing in the world because he can tell that you’re very passionate about the subject. You often catch him staring at you, head cocked to the side as he beams at you. The sight causes your heart to splutter as though it’s giving up which he only laughs in return to.

° “What? Do I have something on my face?” You’d hum, fingers darting to your cheek as your brow creases in confusion.

° “Nah, babe.” Marko grins, leaning closer to you, his crystal blue eyes gazing down at your mouth prior to meeting your gaze once more.

° “Then why are you staring at me like that?”

° He tends to ask you questions when it’s just you two, it gives him the space to relax because none of the other boys are listening in. He keeps all of your secrets. He’s a trustworthy vampire!

° “Does garlic work on you then?”

° “No, I literally just ate garlic right in front of you Marko.”

° “Oh yeah!”

° If hunters are rampant in Santa Carla he’s more than down to keep you safe. He’s never opposed to kicking some hunter ass! Even if you’re capable of defending yourself, he’s kind of an idiot and will get involved anyway. Again, that’s only because he feels strongly about you.

° Marko tends to sit back and observe the way you use your gifts. He laughed so hard when David attempted to use compulsion on you. The boys never let David live that down for a solid three months!

° Similar to the other boys, Marko is relieved that mind games aren’t something that can affect you. You’re fully aware of what someone is attempting to do to you, which makes you more honest and Marko enjoys that about you.

° He also thinks it’s incredibly hot when you call out David. Like his babe can’t get any better to him! No one stands up to David. The fact that he’s got a Damphyr mate that’s ballsy like that makes him happy. You fit right in with him and the boys, no doubt.

° Marko never holds back in the bedroom department, and the fact that you can withstand far more than a human, it allows him to worship your body for hours on end. He’s the most notorious tease out of all the boys, and isn’t afraid to make you work for what you want. He gladly suffers the consequences afterwards because in his eyes, you begging for him was all worth the teasing he received from you the next few nights.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* 　　 *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧

please like, reblog and follow for more!

requests: open!

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theliterarywolf · 5 years ago

Text

So... Let's talk about Hetalia. Controversies, Specifically.

Tagging @apply-force-too-begin since they’re the one who was interested.

Hetalia was one of my first big fandoms outside of 'The Big Three' anime (Naruto, Bleach, One Piece) and outside of video games (mostly whatever wee babby weeaboo me could get on the Gamecube).

And, you know what? It's a dumb, silly anime about stereotypes, poking fun at the absurdities of History, and one's relationships with clashing cultures. It's dumb... But, remember, we all need our daily thirty minutes of dumb. And some of the characters are cute.

And, you know what? Most of the most engaging aspects of the fandom were those who used the initial shallow splash of history that the anime gave them to actually research and make engaging, well-written, culturally-sensitive content.

Of course, I'm not going to ignore how... Over-the-top some members of the fandom have been. We've seen how, whenever recent political conflict or natural disaster have occurred, we have to remind younger members of the Hetalia fandom to not cutsiefy it with the Hetalia characters. Examples that come to mind are: when the conflict between Russia and Ukraine was surging up, kids kept trying to draw art of 'Russia just wants his big sister back~!', and the last major earthquake that hit Japan that had people making fanart of the Japan character which, while some was tasteful and was meant to bring awareness and donations for Disaster Relief, not... all of it was...

Hell, that’s not even bringing into account the last time I went to Anime Expo (way back during Hetalia’s hayday), I was walking around and saw a bunch of Russia and Baltic State cosplayers being interviewed by the news and the one dressed up in a USSR uniform was holding up a Communist flag and shouting ‘Whoo! SOVIET TAKEOVER!!’

However, one thing that I have noticed, while researching for this write-up, was this:

Most of the controversies and pieces of fandom-wank that have surrounded Hetalia and its fandom... Aside from one instance... Are the results of the Western-fandom and Western-localization of the anime via Funimation.

Aside from one... Most of the issues surrounding Hetalia are due to the West and not even the source media in of itself.

So, with that in mind, let's talk about the main controversies of both Hetalia and its fanbase.

Controversy 1 – The South Korea Controversy/Protests

As I recently answered a question about this, so I'll just pull that answer for this segment:

'To summarize it: there’s a Hetalia character meant to represent South Korea. As every Hetalia character has a gag related to them (America gorges himself on fast food and constantly proclaims himself to be the Hero, Italy is cowardly, Germany is constantly angry, China constantly builds Chinatowns wherever he goes and sells bootleg merchandise, etc), so did S. Korea.

His gag was calling all the other Asian countries ‘big brother’ as well as groping the chests of male characters (China and Japan mostly), proclaiming ‘these mountains belong to South Korea, da ze!’

Of course, people would draw pictures of S. Korea doing his thing but one day during a meeting between a bunch of South Korean politicians and representatives, someone brought out a piece of fanart that depicted S. Korea groping Japan’s chest with the latter looking embarrassed and what not.

They interpreted the character as being an offensive, lecherous stereotype that was somehow belittling S. Korea’s worth as a country.

There were a bunch of small protests until, finally, Himaruya Hidekazu (the creator of Hetalia) just decided to say “you know what? Fine! I’m not getting rid of the character but he’ll never appear in the anime adaptation, okay?!’

So… Yeah! Fun times…'

Magnitude of Controversy – MAJOR

Like... In what universe is 'this meme hurt my feewings, we need to take VALUABLE TIME DURING GOVERNMENT FORUMS to talk about it RATHER THAN OTHER PRESSING ISSUES' a good response? And the fact that people took to the streets to protest? Come on, guys! There's so much more to worry about in this world...

Controversy 2 – Emperor Heliogabalus and Himaruya's 'Transgender Erasure'

There was a section of time where Himaruya Hidekazu, rather than focusing on the nation characters of the series, made chapters and updates about certain historical figures. They were all done for laughs while interspersing various bits of trivia and facts about them.

One of these updates centered around the Roman emperor Heliogabalus (or 'Elagabalus'). And this is where certain portions of this hellsite got soooooo upset...

You see, Himaruya titled the update centered on Heliogabalus as 'The Emperor Who Tried to Live as a Woman... Even Though He Was Really a Guy'.

Almost immediately people were typing up callout posts about how 'transphobic' Himaruya was for the title and 'how dare he misgender my precious trans baby~!' or 'this just goes to show how ignorant Japanese people are to Western history' and so many more, all because Himaruya didn't use out-and-out female pronouns for Heliogabalus.

Now. Mm, two things!

One! This was during the time when Himaruya had an open blog where, not only did he post pictures and updates about where in the world he was traveling and what he was researching, but it also had an inbox that was open for people to send insight to him.

So, if people were really incensed by this, you would think that they would use such a means to let a creator know 'hey, this is kind of problematic; can you edit it to show this information', right?

Right?

NO ONE tried to inform Himaruya of their upset; they literally didn't want an answer, they just wanted to be upset!

But, here's the kicker: the guy that all of these people were stanning for? Emperor Heliogabalus?

WASN'T FUCKING TRANS!!

The real Heliogabalus was a sadistic little shit who was connivingly put on the throne by his mother via a bunch of espionage and assassinations... Who, as thanks, had his own mother murdered once he was emperor. Other wonderful exploits of this 'icon' that tumblr kids decided to stan was:

Getting politicians and countrymen drunk and then, while they were passed out, brought in lions to kill and eat them

Deciding 'fuck Jupiter, Helios is my husbando – We're all going to worship him now!'

Completely wrecking Rome's monetary system

Promising favors to his lovers (whom he called his 'husbands' despite not making anything official) that strictly contradicted favors to his other lovers

And just generally being a hot mess

So... why were tumblr children so insistent on him being a transgender woman?

You ready for this?

Okay.

Because he occaisionally dressed in women's clothing and called his male lovers his 'husbands'.

Yeah.

One of the earliest case of tumblr children trying to ruin someone's life because they didn't follow their headcanons.

Magnitude of Controversy – Honestly, this was just fandom-wank. But it was one of the earlier instances of fandom brats using serious terms (transphobia) to justify being upset at a creator not following their headcanons.

Controversy 3 – The Passover Photoshoot

…

I'm sorry, just...

Everytime I remember or have to go over this one, I have to stop and reflect; maybe grab a drink.

…

Okay.

So, pretty early into the Western reaches of the Hetalia fandom, a group of friends and Hetalia fans decided to meet up together at a mall for a cosplay photoshoot.

Okay. Cool. Fine.

They were all dressed up as their favorite characters from the series! Germany, Austria, Hungary, P-Prussia, Holy... Roman Empire...

Ahem. Okay. Cool. Fine.

So, they get to the mall and start taking pictures. But then someone in the group gets the amazing idea for everyone to do certain poses.

I... You know, why did I start this, I could have just not done thi--

Nazi salutes. You had a bunch of dumb kids dressed up as Germanic nations. Performing Nazi salutes and shouting 'Heil Hitler'.

Now, as bad as this was... you could have just drawn it out as shitty edgelord humor; we still have plenty of that going on today.

H-however. There were two factors that made this photoshoot 50 Shades of Tasteless.

Number one. This photoshoot took place during Passover.

And number two. The mall that this photoshoot took place at...

WAS JUST A HOP, SKIP, AND A JUMP FROM THE UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MUSEUM!!!

This is the one, THE ONE, instance where, anytime someone talks about 'lol, young Hetalia fans are so cringey', this is what pops into my head.

Those of us older members of the fandom can never fucking forget this. Yeah, the perpetrators were called out; yeah, they learned their lessons, yeah it opened up a conversation about appropriate behavior in fandom. But this one event will always remain as the big 'Ooh, baby, nooooo! What are you doing?!' moment in the fandom.

Even moreso than what the current batch of hatedum is about.

Magnitude of Controversy – Huge. The South Korea controversy was discussed on a governmental scale, but the Passover Photoshoot is what remains as the biggest mark on the fandom.

Controversy 4 - FUCKING FUNIMATION!!

Okay, I...

This one is so infuriating because it’s the result of Funimation just not giving a DAMN.

So, Hetalia got popular enough to be localized! Yay... And it was going to be handled by Funimation. Yay... They do quality work... Sometimes.

*kicks the Black Butler dub into the sun*

So, they dubbed Hetalia. And, you know what? So many questionable decisions went into this fucking dub.

You have Vic Mignogna! You! *clap* Have! *clap* Vic! *clap* Mignogna! You could have easily put him as one of the Axis characters or the Allied characters and you...

Don’t use him...

Until three seasons down the line...

And then you have him as Greece.

A character who barely says anything.

... And this was WAY before the clusterfuck of KickVic, so they really had no excuse.

Oh, also! For China, who is a main character, maybe we should have an actual voice-actor?

Pssh! Fuck that shit, let’s just have some random chick from accounting voice him.

... They literally had some random-chick from accounting do an overly stereotypical Chinese accent and said ‘yeah, that’s fine; print!’

And she gave us such... wonderful line-reads as: during the Hetalia movie Paint It, White! --

“SUCK BALLS! I knew za fortune cookie today was bad ruck~!”

But as bad as the dub got sometimes (Oh God, I’m having war flashbacks of Russia...), the exchange from the dub that people constantly point to as ‘see! This show was antisemitic all along!’ were these:

Exchange 1 -

S. Italy/Romano - ‘Hey asshole, I have a surprise for you~!’

Germany - ‘What is it? Another Jew?’

And, you know what? As asinine and idiotic as that brief exchange was...

IT WASN’T IN THE ORIGINAL MATERIAL!

Funimation, in their infinite wisdom, wrote that in and thought ‘yeah, that’s fine; print!’

So, there goes another issue of ‘problem that only existed because of the idiocy of a Western presence’.

Magnitude of Controversy - Well, people are still talking about it, despite it literally being because of Funimation’s laziness, so...

'Controversy' 5 – The Civil War fanart

So, this segment will be short because it doesn't even need to exist. But, you may have noticed an upsurge in people hating on the series again; even going so far as to raid Discord servers for fans of the series with gore.

Hell, I even scrolled past one person doing a 'call to arms' for people to spam any server that has to do with Hetalia as a big 'gotcha'.

And you wanna know where this fandom-wank started?

Someone on tumblr re-posted an old piece of... questionable chibi fanart of Confederate!America and Union!America. Union!America is hiding a slave woman behind him while shouting at Confederate!America to 'Pick your own damn cotton!'

(deep breath... okay)

And, while the art in of itself is... not great, the fact that it is an old piece of fanart and that someone posted it onto tumblr for the 'lol, look at this cringe' lolz, is what rallied some people to start shitting on fans of the show and raiding servers.

There also may have been some drama over on picrew by some teenage LGBT user lashing out at the whole 'stop spamming Picrew with gay shit' sentiment and then some edgelord over on this hellsite screencapping their game and talking about 'lol, of course it would be a cringey Hetalian to post some dumb shit like this; get off the site, queer' but, honestly, this last one, while being the reason why people are acting dumber than usual, is the most inconsequential.

Magnitude of the Controversy – It would be minimal at best, especially compared to the other ones in this write-up, but like I said, it does have some trickling into the current hatedumb.

So, yeah, here was my little write-up/mini-dive into the madness. You guys can let me know if you want more insight or if you have any questions, and I love you and buh-bye!

#fandom-wank #fandom history

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beer-me-strcngth · 5 years ago

Text

Something Wicked This Way Comes

When: June 22 Where: By the river Who: Bree & Eerb (Please forgive the lack of editing on this, I’ll update it at a later date I just wanted to get it posted for now)

The river is placid today, its surface calmer than usual and sparkling under the midday sun. Birds chirp in the trees on the island’s shoreline. Summer heat settles over everything, blanketing it in humidity that manages to be almost pleasant, if still a little stifling. The current begins to pick up, gradually at first, but then the river starts to rush. Waves form on its surface. A figure comes skating through them, light bouncing off of her sun-bleached hair. Her feet are bare, floating upon water which bends perfectly to her whims. Her grin is wild and her laughter unbridled; seaweed strands are tangled up in her hair, and a fine film of salt coats her suntanned skin wherever it hasn’t recently been splashed. Despite all the little details, Bree may as well be looking into the flat waters of a clear lake, or a perfectly clean mirror - this person is a perfect reflection of her. When she opens her mouth to speak, even her accent is the same. “You look like you could be having a lot more fun right now.”

Bree blinks at the alternate version of herself -- part of her had been preparing for this since the others had their encounters, but it was still weird. Really weird. "Riiiight. Sure, okay. If this is a parent trap type situation and you're here to tell me that your mom has a picture with half of my dad's face and we're twins separated at birth, I'm gonna need a drink."

"I wish. How funny would that be?" She laughs. Liberty in a single sound. The water around her shifts like it finds Bree amusing, too. "We're not really twins. I mean, I guess we are? In a sense? But not literally in a shared-a-womb way. Besides, I'm too busy doing whatever I want to worry too much about schemes and hijinks. There are always waves to catch and magic to use, you know."

"Sure, I guess. But have you tried schemes and hijinks? They're pretty awesome," Bree said, moving closer to the water. "Like, recently I put out a bunch of catnip for a friend who... you know what, long story. Complicated story. But I digress. You know rivers aren't really great for surfing, right? White water rafting, maybe."

"I remember the catnip! That was fantastic. Aeron never quite puts that in the past, watch out." Her hands are on her hips and she wiggles her toes in the water, perfectly at ease suspended just above it. "I'd be on the open ocean now, but you happen to be on a river. You make do with what you've got. Actually, I'd rather be in the Bermuda Triangle." Her eyes are alight with mischief. "Once, just for fun, I pulled the whole area into a giant whirlpool and sped around so fast I gave myself whiplash. Worth. It."

She frowned at that, trying to figure out what exactly all the implications of those statements were. But that wasn't really her strong suit. "What if I get Aeron like..... a cool sword or something? Will he forgive me? I honestly didn't mean it for him. But also, what the fuck, dude? Are you gonna explain who you are or what you're doing here? Or are we going to just hang out, I'm leaning toward the second one if you want my opinion, always figured I'd be fun to hangout with."

"You could give him magic the likes of which he's never seen. Worked wonders on me." Her smile is completely unbothered even as Bree tries to usher them to the point. "Right right, I came here for a reason. We could totally hang out. Come with me to Bermuda! And, you know, stay." She tilts her head, watching Bree intently. "Sticking around here... It's fine. It's whatever. A little bit stifling though. I was okay with that at first, until I found out that magic doesn't work like we think it does. Bree, there's so much more we can do. I love everyone on the Council, for sure, even the grumps, but the thing itself is kinda... Unnecessary. I've found something better. So I came to tell you about it."

"I never doubted there was more," she said honestly. "The trouble with being reincarnated and relying on my shitty note-taking skills to learn from. But if I'm going anywhere, it's home. Australia home. I mean, Bermuda is officially on the bucket list now because that sounds awesome, but these people would literally die without me. Of boredom, probably. Gimme your spiel. And your cell number. And your go-to karaoke song."

For perhaps a split second, something serious, maybe even solemn, crosses her face. "They really do struggle not to let their seriousness swallow them whole." Water laps at the river shore, inching closer to Bree. "You can go anywhere, Bree. Surf Bermuda, check out some arctic glaciers, be back at Bondi in a second. I'm telling you, the magic we've had hidden away from us all this time? Total game-changer." With a puff of air she blows a lock of hair out of her eyes. "You've kinda gotta throw yourself at it, though. It's a whole-ass-or-nothing deal, and it'll tear the Council right apart if you aren't careful. Guess that's what happens when nobody is in charge."

"Yeah, I'm not actually worried about getting more magic for myself, I'm pretty happy with what I have. It's way more than most people have. But if you know where Feiyan is, that I'm interested in."

She groans almost playfully. "You're asking me the one thing I'm incapable of answering. Or, actually, one of like five. I can try, but I think the effect is supposed to make me look like a fish out of water. All lip, no noise. Feiyan can be found, though, that's the good news. I used all this magic to do that." She hardly lifts a finger and two columns of water rise to flank her. Then they begin to twirl, graceful as dancers, before sliding back into the river. "It's not just raw power - although it's that, too. Have you ever dreamed of commanding the entire ocean, Bree?" The reflection smiles like she's looking right through Bree. Her eyes are a little wild, focused on the horizon. "We are the ocean. Have you ever thought about that? What's a better embodiment of Strength than that?" Her words fall to silence and it lasts for several long beats, until she shakes her head and brings herself back. "But it's not just that. It's being about to teleport just like Mitch, or walk through the world with all your Spidey senses dialed up as high as they go like Justice. It's what The Ancients meant to take away, I suppose, and it's the key to finding Feiyan. Or to destroying the Council as you know it."

"What are the other four things?" Bree asked curiously. She sat on the river bank and leaned back on her elbows, face toward the sun to soak up as much vitamin D as she could. "The ones you can't answer. I know you can't tell me the answers but what are the questions?" Part of her doubted her double would answer that, either. Maybe it was question two. She turned her head toward the bizarro-Bree and shaded her face with one hand. "So, you're me. You made your choice, got the power, whatever. You're here to tempt me to do the same. Why? What do you care, you got your eeveelution, why does it matter if I make a different choice?"

She hummed, looking down at Bree from where the water held her high. "Five wasn't literal, buuuuut, I can't just give you the secret to using other magic - I can only tell you it's drawn from ley lines. I can't tell you who's about to come meddle in the Council's whole shtick, but I can tell you someone is. Stuff like that. I'm allowed to warn you, but I can't give you the answers you need." No emotion shifts over her face to cover her serene contentedness. Even if what she says seems urgent, she herself is as carefree as the ocean. "You're me, right? I'm you. And I kinda care about myself and what I need. Not enough to try to make you do anything, because when has that ever worked on us, but enough to warn you. There's a lot more to being Strength than you know, and was exhilarating to figure out for me. Helped me find Fei. Helped me figure out where I belong. Spread the happiness, babe."

"Yeah, we went to the ley lines. Someone is fucking with them. You know anything about that?" Bree asked. She sighed, this alternate version of her was too.... stoic. The fact that her face didn't give away her every thought spoke volumes to how different the two girls really were. Everything she was offering felt too good to be true -- the proverbial snake in the garden offering endless knowledge in exchange for eternal damnation. "Here's the thing Eerb... You're me, I'm you, so I feel like we know each other pretty well. And... I just don't trust you. There's an ulterior motive here, I don't know what it is, but I know it's there. I know that because I'm a terrible fucking person and given the chance at adventure and excitement I throw caution to the wind every time and fuck things up -- I've read about it over and over and over and I'm trying to break the cycle here."

Her calm surface gives no hint of any currents which may run beneath. "I do. I can tell you it's, uh, interference from others who..." She's thinking of words which won't get her in trouble, that much is clear. "Who know about magic and how to use it. Who aren't on the Council. Is that a good enough hint? I'm not discussing unicorns here or anything. That would be fun, though." She chuckles at 'Eerb' and doesn't bat an eyelash at Bree's candor. Doesn't seem moved by anything at all, really. Maybe her expression gains a hint of seriousness, but even that isn't easily proved. "You don't have to trust me. That seems fair enough. I did just show up out of the blue while you were minding your business. And I'm not asking you to decide anything now! I have to come back later to show you the full extent of this power anyway. So I'll come back, and you can decide then to trust me or tell me to get lost, if you like. Right now is just for giving you everything I can. Right now is for telling you that you an be the ocean, Bree. You can be a lot more than just some person or some Councilor. The Council is going to fall apart over this magic one way or another. You might as well become the force of nature you are, find Feiyan, and get a taste of that adventure before someone steals it from you for good."

saltlord06/22/2019

glittersatan06/22/2019

(,kjhgfghj) (that was so funny i broke character)

saltlord06/22/2019

(you're welcome)

"Come back for Halloween, we can get one of those two person horse costumes but a unicorn. We'll be super fucking magical," she said with a grin. "I'll keep an eye out for Death Eaters screwing with the leylines, if I can... And, for the record, I'm not saying get lost, do what you want as long as it's not hurting anyone, I just don't know what I'm going to do. In my experience when someone offers you something that sounds too good to be true, it usually is. The only exception has been Feiyan. What you're offering sounds a bit like Ultimate Cosmic Power, ITTY-BITTY living space, ya know? So I'll think about it. You can stick around, if you want. We can go do karaoke or like... freak people out with twin-y things."

"Are you afraid of me being some kind of magical used car salesman? I guess that makes sense. I can't promise people won't get hurt." She cants her head, expression pensive. "But that's true no matter what you do. See, once Marcy or Dan or Azra gets their hands on this power... yikes. Let's just say things went to hell right quick and my first instinct was to run away to Australia. Getting between them and their precious power wasn't easy. Hard decisions come with the territory." The little river waves around her grow agitated, sliding back and forth to the rhythm of the reflection's toes tapping the water's surface. "It took me a while to get used to all this... raw power. But magic is a force of nature, and nature's gonna be around long after us." She shrugs and then her grin starts up again. She starts to hum, a little off-key and without much attention to being nice to listen to, before a song tumbles from her laughing lips. "If you change your mind, I'm the first in line! Honey, I'm still free, take a chance on me." She steps onto the shore to accompany her singing with a dance, the water responding in kind. "I dunno the words, duh-nuh nuh nuh nah, something somethi-i-ing, take a chance on me-" She dissolves into her laughter for a moment and then straightens her spine again. "Karaoke rules and we are obviously fantastic at it. I can't stick around too long, though. Bermuda's my hot date."

“See, now I know you’re evil. How can you not know the words to ABBA? I’m going to kick your ass at karaoke.”

glittersatan06/22/2019

(is that her response for real kjhgf)

saltlord06/22/2019

Yeah. That’s it. She intends to think about the rest of it and try to sort it out in her head but talking to her double doesn’t seem to be getting her anywhere? Probably because she’s not asking good questions because she’s... a dummy lol

glittersatan06/22/2019

(i love everything about her)

saltlord06/22/2019

(I’m glad someone does lol)

glittersatan06/22/2019

"I mean, do you want me to be evil?" she asks, not remotely put out by the thought or Bree's lack of faith. "I can try. Not sure I'll be all that good at it since, like, all I can think about is ABBa and curly fries now, but you know how it is."

“No, that seems counterproductive. But I remember learning about doppelgängers and they’re like... always evil so.” She shrugged. “Damn, now I want curly fries. I think there a food truck nearby. Wanna see?”

"Oh, that's totally another thing I can't explain. What exactly I am. Or from when or- well, I can hint, but specifics don't come through. Let's get curly fries. I think the last time I had any was before Nadine went totally nuts and black magicked the whole Lair to pieces." She says it like she's commenting on the weather and then rubs her hands together excitedly. "You know what I love about food trucks? No dress code. I'm totally barefoot and they can just suck it."

“If anyone was gonna do it, it’d be her,” Bree sighed. “But also, I don’t like that you’re just so blasé about Nadine going bat shit and blowing things up. That’s... not ideal.” She looks down at her alternate self’s feet and cocks her head to the side. “If you’ve got access to everyone’s powers, couldn’t you just bamf some shoes here?”

"I got her to stop, so I mean..." She shrugs. "She can't hurt anyone now, and that's what matters, isn't it?" She does a mock tap dance in the sand just for Bree. "I could. I could do anything I wanted, though. Turn my feet into pterodactyl claws if I feel like it. Barefoot is nice, I like sand between my toes."

"Okay, but, ya know... it's June. And this isn't like a beach beach. Gonna be walking on asphalt soon enough. But hey, you do you."

She beams at the suggestion and pulls her knee up to take a step forward. Water rushes from the river to form a bubble floating just barely above the ground, and it supports her weight when she steps onto it. "Shoes are boring unless they're shaped like animals. And I could just bamf up some narwhal-shaped slippers, but this feels more fun."

"It's also super conspicuous? There are muggles around."

At that she groans. "Does that really matter? What are they gonna do, arrest us? Just tell them I'm a street magician and everyone else will come up with some rational explanation for what they're seeing."

"Yeah, and then you disappear and everyone looks at me with questions and I get blamed. Don't tell me you're too spoiled to walk."

"You're the one who just warned me about asphalt!"

"So put on some shoes! Damn, girl. There does not need to be this much drama. And that's coming from me."

She rolls her eyes but there's humor in the curve of her lips. It's the way someone who knows they're being purposefully unhelpful smiles. One moment her feet are bare, the next they're supported by beachy sandals. "Better, Miss Snippy?"

"Yes. And those are cute, you can leave them when you go." With that, she flips her hair and starts walking toward the food truck.

"Bossy bossy," she says as she strolls along after Bree. "And you think you wouldn't be a good leader."

"I wouldn't. There's a big difference between being bossy and making good decisions."

"Well, duh, but you aren't bossy to Azra or Eve or Aeron or anyone when you need them to listen to you." She arches her eyebrows like she's daring Bree to tell her otherwise. "You're a great listener when you try, and you know how to command attention without ever actually commanding. Sounds like leadership to me, but what do I know, I'm only you."

"You know as well as I do that people like Salma and Marcy will never take me seriously, nor should they. And I don't want to be in charge."

"They let their massive egos get in the way. How do they walk around like that all the time? Gotta be hard on their necks, am I right or am I right?" She stops in her tracks, her head cocked to the side. "Well if you won't be in charge, how can you trust anything will get done?"

"I'm not one of those if you want something done right you have to do it yourself types. I trust the people I'm with - yeah, they'll fuck some things up but we're all fuck ups so, what can you do? Micromanaging is exhausting and time consuming and ultimately counterproductive. So says the one book on management I read when I was seventeen. But it was written by flipping Navy Seals, so..."

"Did the Navy train them to flip, do you think?" She hasn't budged. "It's not really micromanaging if you tell them what to do and they do it. It's kind of just, managing. We are all fuck ups, though, that's totally true."

"Who knows," she replied with a shrug, moving around her double to continue toward the food truck -- the more important goal at the moment. "I'm not a manager."

She watches Bree's back as she walks away, her smile vanishing for a moment as her eyes narrow dangerously. Pleasantly she asks, "Then what are you?" and re-schools her face into something cheerful and benign, if a little tight around the eyes.

"A happy -- and hungry -- peon."

"I didn't realize you'd back down so easy from a challenge." It's an obvious attempt to goad her, but then, her carefree smile is starting to strain.

Bree smirked and shrugged. She didn't really think of herself as a happy peon -- it was true that she didn't want to be in charge, but there was also a part of her that wanted to see what would happen with this double if she just continued to do the opposite of what Eerb seemed to want. "Yup. We're pushovers, you ought to know that."

Now she makes no effort to hide her slitted gaze. "What about helping people? Protecting magic? Rescuing Feiyan? You'd rather just stand by and see what happens?"

Bree can't help but roll her eyes and sigh. "Calm down, okay? I'm partially messing with you because I know you're sure as fuck messing with me. But all that other stuff is going to work out -- we're going to find Fei. Magic is always chaotic and it will continue to be chaotic but we'll figure it out and we'll manage as a team -- it's what we do. I'm going to keep helping the council as much as I can, as annoyingly as I can, because they're my family and that's what you do with family. You, on the other hand, are probably an evil double sent from The Darkest Timeline™ to steal my soul, half my socks, and probably my favorite t-shirt, then stir shit up and either leave or replace me like a changeling. I'm not really cool with that but I also don't know how to stop it and I'm morbidly curious so I figure my best bet is to be myself -- an annoying troll -- and hope you get bored and either kill me or that we get a bicycle built for two."

There is a long silence. Nothing seems to move around them, and neither does the reflection. She just watches Bree. There is curiosity leeching into her face now, but it's tempered by wariness, or perhaps disappointment. Then she moves just a little too fast for comfort, coming to a stop right in front of Bree. Their eyes would be perfectly level if her head was not tilted slightly. Her gaze searches Bree's face. "I don't know what to make of you," she says softly, dissatisfaction evident.

She flinched slightly as her double moved in front of her, because that's weird af. "Yeah, I get that a lot." Her voice is nonchalant, but she's tensed to run if needed. (NOT THAT IT'D DO ANY GOOD BECAUSE HOLY SHIT HER DOUBLE JUST BASICALLY NARUTO RAN IN FRONT OF HER)

Her nose twitches. "You're so... tame." She's not bothered by their closeness, leaning her neck back only to get another look at Bree, then closing that distance yet again. "All the jokes and the pretenses. You're like a puppy. You aren't interested in power or doing important things or anything, are you? You just want to play."

"You're supposed to be me, you should know." She takes a step back and to the side, moving toward the food truck again. (She's such a little shit, I'm sorry. Because she knows her evil twin wants her do do something she's going to do NOTHING out of spite. #TheWorst )

"Maybe I should take your place."

"You'd be bored."

"I had such fun before, though... And I'm out of my own friends to drown."

Bree arches an eyebrow, turning and walking backward so she can look at her double while still making her way toward the food truck. "This is the part where I'm supposed to say something like 'touch them and I'll kill you' but if you really were me, you'd know that so I don't have to say it. Thing is, I can tell you're trying to get a rise out of me, I'm just not sure why. You want my life? Seems like you're more powerful than I am, you could murder me right here and now and take it. But you're not doing that, so there's either a bigger goal or something stopping you. I'm not the brightest bulb, but I'm also pretty sure that you're not actually me. I watched Back to the Future, interacting with your past/future self like...erases photos and fucks with the time space continuum. So, if you want something, do us both a favor and come out with it."

Disinterest filters into her expression and she shrugs. "I came here to offer what I have. You don't have to take it, but then I don't have a reason to stick around. Your life isn't important in the grand scheme of things." She turns away, looking back toward the water. "You just get reborn."

"If I'm so unimportant, why bother making the offer at all?"

"I never said you weren't important."

"So I'm important, just not my life? Meaning, what? Strength matters but not the current incarnation?"

She settles a sidelong glance over her shoulder at Bree, her face hard and inscrutable. "You could be the ocean, you know. Unfathomable. Powerful beyond belief, and vital. I don't know why you wouldn't choose that. But you don't have to - it's not something I can force. What comes next will be painful for you if you choose to watch from the sidelines, that's the best I can explain. Too afraid to take a risk and rise to the challenge? Then be afraid."

"Dually noted." She rolls her eyes and starts turns to walk away before turning back and adding, "Oh, and fuck you, too."

She smiles at that, an expression too wide and sharp for Bree's features, but she says nothing at all in return. (bree can exit orrrr engage, anything you want)

saltlordToday at 2:49 AM

Yeah, she's done with this bish

Bored of your threats now, i'm gonna get a snow cone

glittersatanToday at 2:50 AM

in that case picture eerb walking off into the water and sliding right into it to disappear - fancy exits are for chumps

saltlordToday at 2:52 AM

LOL And then there's bree who's just like, "I thought we were getting food? I think your threats might be more effective when not on an empty stomach." Bree also 100% had a hermione moment as Eerb was walking away and was like "is that really what my hair (and ass) look like from the back?"

#Something wicked this way comes #double trouble #bree and eerb #event 04 #Some commentary by myself and Divya left in because of the amusement factor and also for when I edit this into a real post

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meteorjamyourdickinme · 6 years ago

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KUROBASU EDITION

Tagged by @tetsucchin. Thank you lovely <3

BOLD ALL THINGS THAT APPLY TO YOU

INSTRUCTIONS:

Copy paste this whole post onto a new post and then proceed to bold as tumblr no longer allows you to edit the original post

We would really appreciate it if you could tag your answer post to #imuniji so we can see how this post is doing!

You can tag others to do it if you want but anyone can do this even without being tagged

GENERAL

I am in highschool

I am/was on a school sports team

I used to play/play basketball competitively

KAGAMI

I am a good cook

I work/have worked as a cook

I know how to surf (on waves)

I can walk on my hands

I once wanted to/ want to become a firefighter

I am/was a firefighter

I like tigers

I am scared of ghosts

I am scared of dogs

I am very loud

I have a huge appetite

Burgers are one of my favorite foods

People often call me simple-minded

I am not good at speaking formally

I’ve attended school in two different countries

Rather than winning, the best part about sports I find is competing against strong opponents

KUROKO

I am good at reading people

I am very blunt

I have little presence

I startle someone often

I know how to do some magic tricks

I have a pet dog

I want to/have wanted to become a teacher

I have really bad bed hair when I wake up

I like reading novels

I am the shortest in my friend group

I have low stamina

I have/had perfect attendance while in school

I don’t like to drink soda

My grades are average

I speak up when I see someone doing something wrong (as in harmful)

I wear a wristband while playing sports

KISE

I have done some modelling

I like doing karaoke

I call all my friends by nicknames

I can differentiate between brands of mineral water by taste alone

I have wanted to/ want to become a pilot

I have at least 2 older siblings

All my older siblings are sisters

I like onion gratin soup

I have (a) piercing(s) on only one ear

I hate earthworms

My best subject is English

I get bored of hobbies I pick up easily

I enjoy having rivals to make me improve

I have a rival who I also get along very well with

I usually learn new things quickly

KASAMATSU

I can play guitar

I am good at motivating people

I am considered a very serious person

I buy CDs

I tend to be both hard on myself and others

My best subject is maths

I greatly value team spirit

Respecting the hierarchy between juniors and seniors is very important to me

MIDORIMA

I have at least one collection

I believe in some kind of fortune telling

I believe in horoscopes

I am a cancer (the astrological sign)

I believe in luck

I can play the piano

My favourite type of music is classical

I don’t like cats

I have long eyelashes

My best subject is Chemistry or Biology

People say I am tsundere

I am not used to asking people for help

I greatly value hard work

I am very protective of at least one of my siblings

I have wanted to/want to become a doctor

I have had green hair at least once in my life

TAKAO

I am the mood-maker

I am good at getting along with almost any type of person

I am known to laugh a lot

I can do a back flip

Trading cards is one of my hobbies

I am not good at being quiet

I adapt easily to others

I enjoy teasing my friends

I am good at spatial visualization

I like kimchi

I am good with children

I am very easy going

I like to sing

I always look at the bright side of things

AOMINE

I hate not giving my all at things I love

I hate playing against opponents who don’t try

I frequently take naps

I like animals

I talk to animals

I am scared of bees

I like banana milk

I am the ace on my sports team

I have a friend I grew up with

I like collecting shoes

I am good at catching bugs

I am bad at spelling

I have wanted to/ want to become a police officer

I keep a diary

I am terrible at teaching others

MOMOI

I have a friend that I always look after

I’m good at analyzing things

My best subject is history

I hate frogs

I love cherries

I can tie a knot in a cherry stem with my tongue

I like shopping

I like collecting bath products

I can’t eat spicy things

I am a terrible cook

I am still friends with someone I once used to date

I usually trust my intuition

MURASAKIBARA

I love eating sweets

I like trying out new sweets flavours

I have more than 3 siblings

I am the tallest in my friend group

I am not particularly hard working

I have wanted to/want to become a pastry chef

I have worked in a bakery/patisserie

I hate eating vegetables

I hate crows

My best subject is physics

I can easily be bribed with free food

I am good at sports even though I am not particularly enthusiastic about them

HIMURO

I can juggle

I have/had an emo style haircut

I love eating pickles

I like watching drama TV shows

I like watching American drama TV shows

I like playing billiards

I work/have worked as a bartender

I have a friend who i consider my sibling

I wear/once wore matching accessories with a friend

I have someone i consider a mentor

I’ve gotten into a physical fight before

I get asked out a lot (as in for dating)

I was once a member of a street gang

AKASHI

I am a good leader

I am confident in my abilities

I can slamdunk

I have gone horseback riding

I have/once had a horse

I have/once had a white horse

I am good at chess

I love tofu soup

I don’t like eating seaweed

I am one of the shortest among my friend group

I am/have been on the student council

I was a straight A student

I have a butler

I have been in a limousine

MAYUZUMI

I’d rather spend most of my free time by myself

I am not good at talking to people

I don’t particularly strive to stand out

I am very sarcastic

I am good with computers

I like getting off at different train stations

I complain a lot about tasks I’m given, but still get them done

I get compared to someone else a lot and it irritates me

I don’t pretend to like people that I dislike

I am not good at encouraging or comforting people

I mostly read light novels or comic books

NIJIMURA

I am a former delinquent

I personally know someone who is/was a member of a street gang

Looking after others is one of my specialties

I have at least 2 younger siblings

I get easily distracted by beautiful people

I have learnt some form of martial arts

I know karate

I am hot-headed

I love eating fried rice

I like playing table tennis

I have bleached my hair at least once

I can easily accept being surpassed by other people

I know how to use an electric switchboard

I often take detours when on my way to somewhere

I have stolen something at least once

#imuniji #I accidentally stole deodorant #and i purposefully stole lysol wipes from school when a joke went a bit too far #i forgot this was in my drafts

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chaoscontrolstheworld · 7 years ago

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Six Shooter - Chapter 1: Guns, Outlaws, and Beginnings

A/N: So, a new story for my Tumblr account. Old one for anyone that found me on AO3. If you want the whole thing it’s almost all up there, but this version will be much more heavily edited, have slight changes and will include less lengthy Authors Notes (also no/very short chapter summaries) and such.

Quick summary/intro before you start reading (background stuff and all that jazz): Wild West AU where the villain is someone everyone loves and will most likely hate me for, but I needed a villain and he will get redemption. There are pistols, bullets and I will attempt to forewarn you if there is anything people may find triggering within a certain chapter. (If you need more info I’ll do a post explaining the idea behind it along with characteristics, style choices, ages, etc.)

Chapters: Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16

Word count: 4,834 (this is kinda the norm for all the chapters if a little short)

A shot rang through the air as the bullet impaled the old, rusty can.

“You try now”, the young boy said, handing the firearm off to his friend. The weapon was readied and loaded as the young boy took it in both hands, lined up the muzzle and closed one eye in in concentration. He stuck out his tongue and wet his lips before he pulled the trigger and hit the can dead on.

Roman yawned and sunk further into the saddle of his horse. He looked out across the desert and frowned as he grabbed the old canteen at his side. He tilted his head back and took a swig from the metal container, cringing at warmness of it. Drinking warm water in a desert just wasn’t right, he decided as he looked over at his travel companion. Logan sat still on his horse, hat perfectly balanced on his head to shade him from the harsh sun. He didn’t look to be that deep in thought, but his face was sullen and blank. He had barely touched his water and Roman felt a sliver of guilt pierce his heart, he knew he was the reason for that. Logan could survive on the bare minimum of water, but Roman loved the stuff when they traveled. So, Logan didn’t drink much, knowing that Roman would want more water than he actually carried.

“Logan?”, Roman asked and the other’s head spun around softly at the mention of his name.

“Yes, Roman?”, Logan asked, eloquent speaking patterns returning as he talked.

“When do you think we’ll get back home?”, Roman asked, biting his lip as his horse’s legs shuddered slightly. He swallowed and looked at the slowly descending sun, red and pink painting the blue sky with more color than usual.

“Judging by how tired our horses seem to be, it may be a day or so before we reach Akers town”, Logan said as his horse slowed until he was next to Roman. The pair fell into silence until Roman sighed and leaned towards Logan. “You appear to be tired as well. Perhaps we should stop for the night.”

“Thank you”, Roman said softly as he stopped his horse near a group of rocks and hopped down, gathering his saddlebag for a pillow and slipping down to rest. Logan rolled his eyes and slid off his horse, taking out two pegs and nailing them into the ground to tie the horses up for the night. He grabbed his own saddlebag and lit the small pile of kindle from his pack to get a fire going. They needed to work in shifts so they didn’t get robbed. Logan settled down by the horses and cracked his neck in preparation for the night ahead.

Twirling a pistol could only remain entertaining for so long, Logan surmised as he flipped the firearm into the air for the fifteenth time and caught it without any problems. He sighed lightly and tilted his head back to look up at the star-studded sky. He scratched the back of his neck and watched the little lights wink at him from their position high above the ground in the sky. He smiled a little as he remembered what his father had said about the stars.

“Each one is like a human soul. So, plentiful, yet so different”, Logan recounted as he twirled the pistol around his finger again, stopping as the fire dimmed more. He supposed he may as well let it die, considering it would be morning in a few hours.

He chuckled as he twirled the pistol again. Roman would be rather angry that he had not been woken by Logan for a night shift. He’d be so mad that Logan had let him sleep the whole night without a break, while Logan spent his night awake waiting for bandits to attack.

He stopped the twirling motion of his pistol and looked over the metal plating, rubbing the swirls dug into the cold metal. His gloved fingers tapped the metal softly, creating a rhythm as the sky above began to lighten. Logan smiled as the sun glared off the metal, turning the ravines in the metal white before fading to the silver of its natural coloring. With a sigh, he pushed the firearm back into place at his side and stood, stretching as the world began to heat up. Roman stirred as the morning sun’s heat bit into his cold body and awoke him from his slumber.

With a flourish, Logan pulled on a large piece of fabric to cover his body from neck down. He grabbed his saddle bag, loaded up his horse and swung himself up and into the saddle.

“Let’s go, Roman”, Logan said looking at the horizon as Roman yawned and began to tidy up, mimicking Logan’s movements with a sluggish demeanor. He yawned again as he sat in the saddle and the two set off on their journey again.

“You didn’t wake me up for my shift”, Roman complained sleepily as the duo kicked their horses into gear and began their slow trot across the barren, sun-bleached plains.

“You needed the sleep”, Logan replied keeping his eyes on the trail ahead of them as Roman slid down a little in his saddle and began to nod off.

“You know I don’t need that much sleep. I’d have been”, Roman cut himself off with a loud yawn and Logan rolled his eyes, a soft smile gracing his features. “Happy to take over”, Roman finished off and Logan dropped back a bit to grab the reins of his horse as Roman drifted off into the darkness of slumber again. Logan chuckled a little and kept the horses going, stopping once or twice to check the sun and give the horses some water.

Roman didn’t wake up until the town came into view, and Logan couldn’t really blame him. They’d traveled non-stop for the past few weeks and at one point the other had pushed on and through the night in an attempt to get there faster. But now with Akers town looming over them from the top of the hill, it could be said it was worth it.

Logan fingered the grip of his pistol as they entered the town. It’d been a while since the duo had been back home and it was still as busy as ever. The people bustled about the town, shopping for various things as they walked from place to place. Logan smirked at the sight of the old bar, wondering if Patton still maintained the beauty of a building. He felt Roman tug on the horse reins and he dropped them to allow his companion to take over.

“You’re heading home?”, Roman asked as Logan kept his horse on track.

“Naturally. I’ll meet you at the bar”, Logan said as he kicked his horse and sped off towards his house. Roman watched, smile vanishing as Logan turned into a dark dot moving slowly up the hill towards one of many large houses dotting the area. He slipped off his own horse and tied the beast up before venturing into Patton’s bar.

Patton was rather on the small, lean side with a smile to match the radiance of the sun. While he may not have been Logan’s cup of tea, he was certainly Roman’s. With a flick of his wrist, Roman entered the bar and took a seat on a stool, smirking as he took the material off from around his shoulders and bundled it up next to him.

“Morning, stranger. What can I get for you?”, Patton asked, smiling at Roman who felt his insides melt a little at the sunniness of Patton’s upturned lips.

“Is a tall glass of you on the menu?”, Roman asked, flashing a dazzling smile Patton’s way. The man giggled lightly and pulled out a glass to fill with water.

“Water it is then. Good to see you back in town”, Patton said as he filled the glass and pushed it in Roman’s direction. Roman’s smile turned into a smirk and he downed the water, sighing as he felt the cool liquid travel down his throat.

Logan slipped off his horse and tied the creature to the closest tree. He walked up to the door of the house and knocked on the wood, waiting patiently as footsteps neared the front of the house. He smiled softly as the door opened and a small boy looked up at him with a shocked expression. He knelt and smiled wider at the boy.

“Logan’s home!”, the small boy cried as she jumped at him and he wrapped his arms around her back and neck, her weight pushing him back off his feet. He landed heavily and chuckled as he held the boy close.

“Logan. Are you well son?”, a loud voice asked and Logan opened his eyes to look up at his father, all smiles and grey hair.

“I am well. Roman and I have just returned from our trip and I was eager to see how Anthony had grown”, Logan responded as his father gently grabbed the Anthony and pulled him off his older brother.

“How is that rapscallion these days? I dearly hope his ego has not infected you”, the old man laughed, Logan chuckled softly as he stood and dusted himself off.

“Roman is doing well from what I can gather, and you need not worry, his ego has had no effect on me”, Logan said as he looked up at his father. The man clapped his hands together and Anthony smiled up at his brother from in front of his father. Anthony giggled and ran into the house as their father turned, clapping a hand down on Logan’s shoulder and driving his son inside after the younger brother.

They ended up in the living room. Logan sat down opposite his father as Anthony ran up and launched himself into his older brother’s lap, laughing hysterically as he rolled on the older boy’s legs.

“Now Logan, I know you’ve been away for a while, but I would like you to meet someone”, the old man said and Logan stopped smiling, feeling as if he knew what his father would say next.

A woman walked into the room, small and shy as every other girl the head of the house had brought in. Logan looked her over and almost sighed. It was the same spiel as ever; settle down, find a spouse, marry, have children and take care of the farm.

“This is Louise. She’s the daughter of James McCredie and Helen McCredie. She loves to read and knows her way around a horse”, Logan’s father said and Logan held back the urge to grimace. He didn’t want to settle down, especially not with someone like Louise McCredie. He’d grown up with her, she was like his sister. His father must be running out of options.

“I think it’d be better if I left”, Louise said, knowing Logan felt uncomfortable. She left quickly and the door shut softly behind her fleeing form.

“Logan, just… think about it. You need to settle down. I don’t care who with. Male, female, anyone is better than no one at this point”, the old man said and Logan sighed, pushing himself into the couch as his younger brother jumped off his lap and ran out into the kitchen.

“Father. I can’t settle down right now. I need to be free for a while. I’ve waited too long now for my freedom. It’s exhilarating to ride with no inhibitors but your horse’s condition and the people you ride with. I-… I want to be able to live a little longer. Please, don’t stop me from doing my job”, Logan pleaded. His father sighed heavily and sat back, closing his eyes as he thought. “These people need me. Don’t make me abandon them, I beg you.”

“Fine. But I want you married by the end of the year”, the man said and Logan smiled at him. Anthony bolted into the room and wrapped his arms around Logan’s waist.

“Are you leaving again?”, Anthony asked with a whimper.

“No, not yet. I need to talk to Roman and Patton first, then I’ll come back. I’ll stay for the week”, Logan said softly as he ruffled Anthony’s hair and smiled down at the young boy.

“Promise?”, Anthony asked and Logan nodded.

“I promise.”

Logan rode down to the bar a few minutes later smiling as he eyed Roman’s horse. He stayed his horse and tied it to the same pole as Roman’s before entering the bar and taking a seat near Roman.

“Welcome back, Logan”, Patton said as he leaned on the bar and smiled at Logan.

“Good day to you, Patton. I see you still run this fine establishment”, Logan said with a small smile as Patton grabbed a glass and filled it with water, handing it to the man before he leaned back against the liquor lined up behind glass, ready to be drunk by those with money to spare.

“Yeah, still got a hold of the bar. Haven’t lost it yet”, Patton said, patting a column that led up to the roof.

“Careful, it might fall down if you do that”, Roman said with a huff of laugher. Patton pulled his hand away quickly and pouted at the other man.

“How was your family?”, Patton asked, knowing Logan would go to his family before venturing into the bar to see how he and Roman were holding up.

“Anthony has grown and my father… he is… deteriorating in more ways than one”, Logan said, taking a drink from his glass as his eyes landed on a stool a few feet away from the group.

“Who’d he bring to the house this time for you to marry?”, Patton asked and Roman spat out his water, apologizing quickly as Patton gave him a glare.

“He’s still on you about marriage?”, Roman asked incredulously. Having known Logan, the longest of himself and Patton, his reaction was considered quite normal.

“Yes, he is. He brought Louise around, but she fled the scene not a minute later than she was introduced”, Logan said, swishing the leftover water around in the glass as he spoke.

“Louise, you mean Louise McCredie. You two are like family though. He must be running low on possible matches for you if he went for Louise”, Roman said with an amused smirk as he passed his glass to Patton and watched the bartender wash and dry the container.

“I assume so. He has yet to go for either of you though, so... that’s something I presume”, Logan said with an easy smile while Patton giggled and Roman rolled his eyes.

“He doesn’t care who you marry, so long as you marry someone”, Patton sighed, turning to put the glass away.

“You’re not wrong”, Roman said with a snort as he bumped his elbow into Logan’s upper arm. “I suppose he’ll start bringing ‘round the farmer's boys next. Who’d ya ‘spose will be the first? Little Gerald or that bull of a man Wilbur?”, Roman asked and Logan sputtered a little at Roman’s joke. Patton chuckled, turning back to lean against the bar.

“I know who he’ll try to set you up with”, Patton said leaning back as the other two shifted closer in anticipation for his answer. “Thomas”, Patton said with a smirk.

“H-he wouldn’t bring Thomas around. He knows that Thomas is… well… he’s just not right for Logan. Thomas is used to the big places, like Tarensville and Correlstone. Places where you can go inside and lose the heat”, Roman said with a little bit of a stutter.

“Well, maybe a city boy with a load of money is just what your old man wants”, Patton said with a wink and Logan flushed at the insinuation. Ture, he wasn’t the wealthiest nor did he rake in much money from his job. But his father knew he didn’t need the money, or care about living a life of luxury. He could handle the farm without all the money Thomas would bring to the table.

“I don’t think he’d do that. Set me up with someone like Thomas just for the money”, Logan said, huffing lightly before he chuckled.

“Well, how about Terrance? Boys got a bright smile and attitude to match”, Patton said, holding up a hand as Roman opened his mouth and a group of strangers called for the bartender to order drinks. “I’ll be right back.”

Roman sighed and let his head hit the bar.

“I assume you have yet to tell him”, Logan said, sipping the little water left as he watched, bemused, as Roman’s head shot up with a shocked expression on his face.

“I-… I… I uh, n-no. What… what are you talking about?”, Roman asked, flushing a little as Logan smirked softly and raised an eyebrow at his question.

“Stop being such a chicken and ask him out already”, Logan said turning his head to smile at Patton who was walking back their way, having tended to the needs of the other group.

“I-I’m not a chicken!”, Roman cried out, regretting it when he eyed the two faces now looking at him with somewhat amused shock and complete shock.

“Mmhmm, you keep telling yourself that”, Logan muttered into his glass as Patton rushed over.

“What was that all about?”, the bartender asked quickly, looking more worried and Roman grumbled, groaned and shrunk back into his stool, while Logan just set his glass down and grabbed his hat.

“I’m off to look at the sheriff’s board. Be back in ten”, he murmured as he stood and walked out the door.

“I’m going to strangle him one day”, Roman growled lowly as Patton frowned at him and took Logan’s glass away.

Logan glanced over the wanted posters feeling his mind working to categorize the best deals and worst criminals. Which one would be the hardest to catch, which would be the easiest. Which had the greatest bounty and which had the smallest. He smiled as he tore a page off the board and began his walk back to the bar. A gunshot echoed through the air and Logan heard a couple of people scream. He raced to the nearest barrel and hid behind it as another shot was fired. He peeked out and swallowed as his eyes danced across the scattered dust clouds for the one who had shot the gun. His eyes landed on a man atop a horse, gun in the air and a bandanna around his mouth. The face was familiar, but he couldn’t place it as a woman screamed from the center of the road. Logan’s eyes darted to a woman holding her child close as the horse and man neared, eyes cold as he looked down at the two in front of him. Logan bit his lip and pulled out his pistol, he’d need two clean shots to take down the man, he couldn’t afford to miss.

A shot rang through the air and Logan looked around the barrel again. Roman stood at the entrance of the bar, pistol drawn and Logan could only think of how much of an idiot his best friend was being. Logan drew and fired his pistol as the horse reared up and the man growled at the two gunmen. He turned and bolted, muttering curses behind him as Roman rushed for the civilians and Logan watched him go. Logan sighed and raced towards Roman who was ushering the duo out of the road, smiling charmingly as usual.

“T-thank you”, the mother said as she held her child close. Logan looked back at the route the man had taken. He wanted to go after him, but he knew better. The man would be back with reinforcements if he could muster the help.

Virgil growled as he pulled his horse to a trot. He rubbed his chin and let his hand trail to the knife concealed in his coat pocket. Who were those two? Where did they learn how to shoot like that?

Di reared a little, slowing to a walk before stopping altogether. Virgil sighed and slid off the large creature, grabbing some food and water so he could feed the horse. Di ate gratefully and Virgil took a seat on a dusty rock, murmuring to himself about how unfair it was. He didn’t like robbing places like Akers town, little nowhere towns that made silence and peacefulness look loud and brash in comparison. Places like that were full of good people who barely left the town, made their fortunes in other families and livestock. He hated taking from people like that, people who were just… living.

He took a swig of his water and coughed, eyes widening as the faces of the two popped into his mind. The more he thought about them the more familiar they became until it dawned on him. He’d seen those faces on fliers up around one of the few outlaw bars. Logan Magenta and Roman Prince, two of the best in the business of bringing outlaws like him to justice. The real question was, why where they in Akers town? Akers town was miles from anything and everything else. It was a detour you made only if you needed to or had the supplies to want to. Quaint? Yes. Hospitable? Yes. But easy to get to? Definitely not. Why would two of the best outlaw hunters be there?

Virgil pondered the idea, trying to come up with reasons, the only few he could think of were; family and spouses. The latter of which made his stomach turn slightly, because who’d want to marry someone that would constantly have to be away, hunting and making you worry if you were ever going to see them again. It could be they had family in Akers town, why they’d left to become hunters was beyond Virgil though.

With a shake of his head, the outlaw stood and gripped Di’s saddle, hauling himself back up and kicking the mare off, dust clouds forming in his wake. He hoped they wouldn’t come after him, the two hadn’t seemed to be moving that fast as he had been speeding away. Still, he couldn’t take any chances of them following him to his boss’s place. He pulled Di off the track and into the sand, hoping the mare wouldn’t refuse as he pushed her to move through the tiny stones. Di didn’t refuse and Virgil thanked his lucky stars as he moved the mare off and on the path, making it a mess of hoof prints leading to and fro. He smirked at his work before kicking the horse into a faster pace and setting off to the bar.

He pulled Di up to the crumbling building, grimacing as she tried to pull away. Even his horse knew this place didn’t bode well. But he didn’t have a choice, he had to go in and face the music, one way or another. And he’d rather not think about… the other way. Virgil shivered a little as images of buff people holding large sticks and guns came to mind.

He tired the mare to the railing and flinched as the door slammed open, a patron stumbling out accompanied by two burly men, guns drawn and ready to fire. Just an average day at an outlaw bar, Virgil thought, grabbing what little money he had and walking inside, ducking his head and pulling the front of his hat down. He didn’t need to be spotted by one of his boss’s goons right now. What he needed was something strong, a rest and to get over to Masonville so he could hold up the bank and get some money, too bad his luck was pretty weak.

“Virgil!”, a loud, jovial voice called out and the bar stilled. Virgil grumbled a little, glowered at the man that stood atop the stairs, hand on the banister. “It’s good to see you again, old friend”, his boss called, making a few people look from the dark stranger to his employer before standing and moving to the door. Okay, so he was kind of a big shot in the outlaw business but if these guys were chicken enough to leave when he was noticed they had no right to call themselves outlaws.

Virgil scratched the side of his nose and walked to the stairs, taking one last look at the group of people, gripping his pistol and letting his index finger graze the trigger. He blinked, slowly pulled his gun up a little and let a small smirk slip onto his face as some people scrambled for the door. With a small chuckle, the outlaw proceeded to walk up the stairs, his employer gave him a somewhat displeased look before the two entered one of the rooms upstairs. Virgil shuffled in and took a seat in the high-backed chair that all the employees sat in when they were being addressed by the boss.

“Virgil”, the man began, eyes narrowing when the other put his feet up on the desk and scratched his neck with one of his pistols. Virgil frowned and glared at his boss, swinging his feet off the desk and letting the boots thud on the floor loudly. His boss moved from the door to behind his desk, gliding across the dusty planks. “Virgil, what have you brought me today?”, the man asked, swiping at his brown hair while Virgil pushed his seat into a better position on the other side of the desk. He tried to act confident, or as confident as someone can be when faced with their nightmare.

“Nothing much. Little bit of money, but not heaps. Town was fresh out when I got there”, Virgil said with a small growl, keeping his sentences short and to the point, no need to anger the boss more than he already would be when he found out how much the darkly clothed outlaw was carrying.

“How much is not much? I need figures Virge”, the man said with a small growl of his own. Virgil pulled out his personal stash and dropped it onto the desk, hoping that the man wouldn’t bother checking how much was in there and would just take it and his lie at face value. The man picked up the bag, letting it rise and fall in his hand, the other cupping his face while his elbow supported it from the desk. The brunette exhaled, a sigh rolling past his lips. “That’s it? That’s all you could get out of… where did you go again?”, his boss asked and Virgil scowled making the man roll his eyes. There was silence for a while before Virgil coughed.

“Akers town. I went to Akers town”, Virgil said, immediately regretting it as his boss’s face lit up, expression switching between confusion and happiness.

“Oh, really?”, his boss asked and Virgil felt the prickle of sweat on his back and neck.

“Y-yeah… little town out north of here. Pretty small, wouldn’t have had much even if it wasn’t robbed”, Virgil said, sinking back as his boss’s face broke out into a dark smirk.

“Akers town, huh? Now, Virge, you should have just told me you couldn’t rob the place”, the man said and Virgil felt his body stiffen, ice poured through his veins and his throat began to close up. How did his boss know about Akers town?

“Wh-what?”, Virgil asked, voice scratchy, he coughed, trying to cover it up but his boss was already grinning from ear to ear.

“Oh, Virgil, I visit Akers town every few weeks. They know me. But for them, I’m just some traveling salesman. Let me let you in on a little trade secret. Don’t go to Akers town. For one thing, there are two gunmen who have family there and they would hunt you to the end of the earth if they found you, and the other thing”, his boss said, grabbing Virgil’s bandanna and pulling him in close over the desk, eyes glittering with ill intent, “you never rob the place you do business in. So… if I ever hear you went to Akers town and tried to rob the place again, you will be out of the job and, quite possibly, dead.”

Virgil swallowed softly and almost jumped back when his boss released him. He gently rubbed at his throat.

“You have my word then. I won’t go back… for money at least”, Virgil said softly and his boss gave him a dark smirk.

“Good boy. Now, go downstairs, and take this with you”, his boss said, throwing the small sack to him, “you’ll need if for drinks and a place to sleep on your next trip. Don’t let me down next time.”

“Yes, sir. Thomas, sir”, Virgil said, exiting the room as the brunette leaned back, a chuckle resonating around the room.

Acknowledgements: @xxtearfulchildxx (They’re a great person. They’ll probably start posting soon, but they write short stories about sci-fi and fantasy. They’ve been really great throughout the writing process so go give them some love :) )

Next chapter will be up in a few days and I’ll do a master post once I figure out how to do master posts and links to posts and things like that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

#sanders sides #logan sanders #roman sanders #patton sanders #virgil sanders #wild west #AU #relationships will happen later #royality #6shooterfic

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kiri-ah · 4 years ago

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Something To Sink My Teeth Into || he/him pronouns version

Pairing: Vampire!Jaemin x Male Human!reader

Word Count: 26.4k

A/N: Okay so uh... this wasn't meant to be this long. I hate my brain sometimes. *sigh*

This has only been edited by myself and a friend of mine, please excuse any errors. I worked hard to make the best experience possible. For that reason, please note that this is the !he/him pronouns version! They/them pronouns may be found here, she/her pronouns here. Please enjoy!

He smiled then, a smirk that seemed far too self-assured for the situation, and leaned over towards your exposed ear. “I can feel you staring, baby,” he murmured. The top of your ear, which had been feeling rather numb, flamed hot at his words. It almost hurt, the sudden jump into heat. You turned towards him fully, only eyes exposed by the scarf mountain. Your hair whipped around as the wind shifted again, but he didn’t seem cold, although he was in only a pair of black skinny jeans, a white t-shirt, and a black jacket. The jacket caught your attention for a second - it was studded with thousands of little rhinestones, like a varsity jacket gone shiny. Then he shifted closer into your space and you were forced to look back at his eyes, glittering in a way that seemed almost predatory. You sucked in a breath through your mouth and started to back away.